Enabling Remote Access to Apps

Enabling Remote Access to Apps

2020 has pushed organizations to keep moving while protecting against new security threats that have emerged due to the rapid and universal move to remote work. ​Some organizations may be further along when it comes to securing remote work and may only need to fine-tune; others may need more assistance to ensure their remote work situation is secure. Every organization has a ​different starting point. We can help you quickly provide secure and scalable access to your apps, whether they are on-prem or cloud-based.

Empower remote workers to access the apps they need without compromising security by:

1. Securing access to all your apps from anywhere. ​
2. Simplifying end-user app discovery. ​
3. Extending secure collaboration to your contractors and partners. ​
4. Enabling strong authentication.

The first step to enabling remote access to apps starts with identity

In our current reality of a highly dispersed remote workforce, now more than ever identity is your control plane to have greater visibility and control over who has access to what, when they should have it, and under what conditions.​ With Azure Active Directory, Microsoft’s cloud-based identity & access management solution, as that control plane you can start that access control by enabling single sign-on to all your apps connected to Azure AD for your users. ​Single sign-on ensures that users only need to log in once to gain access to all their critical productivity resources, and they won’t need to remember passwords to each application account.

Why should you manage your identities from the cloud? ​

• The cloud is more secure. With the ability to train models and algorithms, and ways to integrate solutions seamlessly, you cannot achieve the same security on-premises. ​​
• It is much better for your workforce – the common identity you’ve created across cloud and on-premises delivers a seamless experience​. ​
• It is a much better experience for you too – you can manage all user identifies and protect your apps from a single plane of glass​ with Azure AD as your universal platform.

With identity and authentication set, now you can securely access all apps from on-premises to cloud-hosted, and SaaS apps

With users authenticated through Azure AD and granted single sign-on to their resources, they can seamlessly access any application connected to the service. ​You can connect your software as a service (SaaS) applications, web-based on-premises applications, and line of business (LOB) apps to Azure AD. Most organizations use about 180 apps on average—and this number keeps growing. ​

To keep you and your workforce more productive, Azure AD has over 3,300 SaaS applications pre-integrated in the Azure AD App Gallery and you can configure any of them for single sign-on and app security with just a few clicks.

 

Provide a single location for people to discover and access the apps they need to get their work done

As the number of apps used by organizations keeps growing, it is becoming much harder for end-users to find them. ​It is even more challenging when employees are working remotely, and IT is over-stretched with the new requirements. My Apps make it easy to deploy new apps across the entire organization or dedicated employee groups by creating a consistent, user-friendly experience that lets your employees securely and conveniently launch all the apps they need with just one click.

Ensure your external partners still have access, remotely

Many organizations rely on external resources to execute key aspects of business operations. This could be vendors, partners, or contingent staff. Ensuring that your external partners still have access during this crisis is critical. ​Azure AD enables user-centric collaboration with any user, in or outside of your organization. ​You can easily connect all external users to collaborate in Microsoft Teams – from chats to co-authoring files and project management. ​You can also extend access for your external users to any app that may be required for the remote work scenarios when in-person meetings with suppliers, contractors, and other collaborators are impossible.

Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) ensures secure access to your apps

To secure authentication, you must first look at passwords and provide stronger factors for your users to establish trust. Passwords are the weakest link in a security chain and a single point of failure without any additional verification. ​That’s why we believe strongly that if you only do one thing to help protect yourself, it should be to turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA) – which can prevent 99.9% of identity attacks. ​We support a broad range of authentication options to fit the needs of your business and your users.

United Training is committed to your success when it comes to the importance of securing remote work. For more information on how we can get you trained at any starting point, contact us today for a free consultation on your next steps.