Top 10 User Authentication And Access Management Solutions
Discover the top ten best user authentication software solutions to authenticate user access to critical business systems. Compare features such as admin policies, authentication options, passwordless functionality and risk assessments.
Security solutions that authenticate and manage user access to systems have never been more important. Increasingly organizations are relying on cloud applications like Office 365, G Suite and many more for critical business functions. Securing access to these systems is key to protecting against data loss and security breaches.
User authentication systems verify that only authorized users can access cloud applications and company accounts. These systems are designed to ensure that only the right people can access the right business systems, and they offer a range of features which help to enhance basic username and password account security.
Authentication systems provide IT teams with a host of security controls and policies, such as enforcing multi-factor authentication so that if a set of credentials are compromised in a phishing attack, there are extra layers of security place to deny access to malicious actors. Some systems will allow admins to implement passwordless authentication, providing users with single sign-on capabilities.
Gartner have recently predicted that by 2023, 60% of large and global enterprises and 80% of SMBs will be using enterprise-wide multi-factor authentication (MFA) to manage user authentication, backed up by an access management platform.
In this article we’ll compare the top ten User Authentication and Access Management platforms. We’ll explore key features including MFA options, adaptive authentication, flexibility, level of visibility, user experience and pricing.
The top ten User Authentication and Access Management platforms include:
- DUO Access | HID Global IAM | Prove MFA | ESET Secure Authentication | Ping Identity | TypingDNA Verify 2FA | Thales SafeNet Trusted Access | Entrust Identity Enterprise | Okta Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication | SecureAuth Identity Platform
Duo Access
Duo, recently acquired by Cisco, is a comprehensive user authentication and access management platform. They offer multiple solutions to authenticate users, provide visibility into account security and secure access to servers and applications. Duo provides multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, configurable adaptive access policies, and device trust functionality. These services are delivered across multiple plans and options, starting with a free version for small teams, right up to Duo Beyond for larger organizations. Duo Access is their mid-tier solution, providing adaptive authentication, access policies and device self-remediation at a low monthly price point.
Duo MFA allows you to easily enforce multi-factor authentication across corporate accounts. Duo has a modern and easy to use authentication app, which allows for easy push notifications to verify user identities. Users can use their smartphone, watch or another token to gain account access. MFA is easy to set up and configure, with active directory syncs, bunk enrolment and user self-enrolment options. As well as MFA, admins can also simplify access to accounts with secure single sign-on, allowing for passwordless access to company accounts. With Duo Access, admins can also enforce contextual, adaptive authentication policies which grant or block user access based on multiple factors.
Duo Access provides multiple access policies which allow you to apply policies to certain groups and restrict logins based on location and other factors, allowing you to take more control over account security. A unique feature for Duo is their device management, which can prompt users to update laptops and mobile devices when logging into accounts, helping to ensure devices themselves remain secure against cyber-threats. Duo also gives IT teams visibility into all devices that are accessing company applications and servers, flagging up potential security risks. Duo is a powerful user authentication tool, praised by customers for its ease of use both for end users and IT admins.
HID Advanced Multi-factor Authentication
HID Global is a market leading cybersecurity vendor specializing in worry-free identity verification solutions. Their authentication and access management products enable IT teams to secure and manage access to both logical and physical assets, and they currently secure over 85 million user identities globally. HID’s Advanced Multi-Factor Authentication solution sits within their Identity and Access Management (IAM) suite, alongside identity management and risk-based management products. Advanced MFA allows organizations to secure their users’ access to corporate networks, VPNs and cloud applications such as Office 365. Additionally, from the central management console, admins can generate detailed reports into account usage, including who is accessing which areas within the network.
HID’s zero-trust Advanced MFA solution is centred around a converged credential ecosystem that enables secure logical (digital) and physical access to company assets. This includes hardware tokens, PKI-based smart cards, digital certificates and mobile push authentication, as well as biometric authentication for organizations looking for a risk-based method. These methods support various digital protocols, including FIDO and OATH, and the smart cards also enable secure physical access to company sites. HID’s Advanced MFA supports single sign-on, saving users from remembering multiple passwords, and sparing IT resources from dealing with password reset requests. HID IAM also features powerful reporting and analytics tools, which leverage sophisticated AI to provide insights into who is accessing what parts of the network. These reports also enable organizations to ensure security compliance.
Users can deploy Advanced MFA on-prem or in the cloud, making it easy to set up, but also highly scalable and flexible. This makes it a strong solution for growing organizations, those with remote or hybrid-remote environments, and those with multiple office sites. HID Global’s MFA solution is particularly popular among finance and government industries, due to its high level of security and its robust management features. We recommend IAM Advanced MFA as a strong solution for mid-sized organizations and enterprises looking to secure access to their corporate accounts across multiple business levels.
Prove MFA
Prove’s Phone-Centric Identity™ platform helps businesses mitigate the risk of identity fraud, and is used by more than 1,000 companies including 9 of the top 10 U.S. banks. Prove supports user authentication for businesses looking to secure their own services, with several use cases and features designed to protect account access and prevent identity fraud, while reducing complexity for both businesses and IT teams. Prove is typically leveraged by IT teams for securing onboarding for high-profile accounts, managing customer phone numbers, and providing multi-factor authentication for digital services, like transferring cash, account login, updating account information, and more. Prove is popular in the financial market, with over 500 banks utilising the service. They were recently recognized by Gartner as a leading identity proofing and affirmation solution.
The key is that Prove leverages mobile signals and customer phone numbers for user authentication. Prove’s Fonebook helps keep comapnies’ customer data always up to date, allowing firms to recognize and authenticate consumers through phone lifecycle change events; it is a fully automated solution, automatically adding new customer numbers and updating numbers as needed. These numbers are verified against Prove’s phone intelligence data and other authoritative sources and are checked for signs of fraud, with indicators that detect how long numbers have been in use, as well as who the numbers are registered under. Phone numbers are also used to verify customer identities, with automated phone calls and one-time passcodes used to authenticate user access and prevent identity theft and data breaches. Admins can implement authentication events at specific parts of the user journey, such as when accounts are created, when monetary transfers are requested, or when users try to log in.
Prove’s phone number management features reduce complexity, while also greatly improving business security against identity fraud and data breaches. The use of phone numbers, as well as Prove’s Phone-Centric Identity model, provides fast and efficient user authentication that is highly secure. It does so by leveraging billions of signals pulled in real-time to verify user identities and provide a higher level of trust, enabling customer access to key systems. Authentication using phone numbers also simplifies the processes for customers, as they can simply answer a call or use a text to prove their identity and gain access to account services. Prove is a strong solution for organizations looking for a way to authenticate their users at different stages of the user journey.
Download Prove’s white paper to understand how you can create more secure, frictionless experiences using next-gen authentication technologies.
ESET Secure Authentication
A market-leader in producing lightweight, user-friendly cybersecurity solutions, ESET are currently trusted by over 400k business customers worldwide to secure access to their corporate accounts. ESET Secure Authentication is ESET’s enterprise two-factor authentication (2FA) solution that reduces the risk of account takeover attacks by restricting access to corporate applications until users verify their identity in two ways. ESET’s solution supports a wide range of authentication methods, which enables all users to authenticate securely, no matter what device they’re working on. It secures access to on-premises applications, as well as web and cloud services such as Office 365 and Dropbox via SAML protocol integration, ensuring compliance and data security across all business systems. ESET Secure Authentication also integrates with a number of VPNs for a comprehensive, unified 2FA experience across all business systems.
ESET Secure Authentication supports user authentication via third-party mobile authentication apps, hardware tokens, FIDO security keys and ESET’s own push notifications, which support iOS and Android systems. This means that all users can easily authenticate using the method which best suits them, no matter from which device they’re trying to log in. ESET Secure Authentication offers its own full-featured API, which enables organizations to enforce 2FA across all of their on-premises, web- and cloud-based applications. It also supports 2FA for RDPs and a number of popular enterprise VPNs, including Citrix, Check Point, Fortinet and SonicWall.
From the web-based admin console, security teams can fully manage the solution, including generating insights into access and authentication organization-wide, configuring authentication policies, and generating reports into account access security for both security and auditing purposes. Because the solution is cloud-based, organizations can deploy ESET Secure Authentication quickly and easily. Onboarding and removing users is straightforward with ESET’s Active Directory integration. This makes ESET Secure Authentication a strong 2FA solution for both smaller teams with few security resources, and larger enterprises that need to secure access to a variety of applications and systems.
PingIdentity
The Ping Intelligent Identity Platform allows organizations to improve security across cloud accounts and applications, while creating a streamlined and seamless user authentication experience, within one platform. Ping offers multiple options securing user access depending on organization type, size and application use cases. Ping supports cloud identity, private cloud and on-premise solutions, as well as hybrid IT environments. The service is deployed as a SaaS solution, aimed at organizations, partners and application developers.
PingOne is Ping Identity’s identity cloud access solution for enterprises. PingOne is designed to be an easy to use, API-based cloud solution that allows organizations to deploy and enforce single sign-on, multi-factor authentication and manage account access. PingOne allows admins to enforce passwordless access to all of their applications with secure single sign-on. This single sign-on is easy to deploy, integrating seamlessly with existing applications. Alongside single sign-on, admins can also enforce multi-factor authentication, to provide an extra layer of account protection when needed.
PingOne provides enterprise IT departments and developers with a comprehensive platform to enforce user authentication. IT teams are able to easily embed user authentication into any web, mobile or single page application. The platform supports multiple environments, including in the cloud, on-premise and hybrid applications. Admins can configure multiple authentication policies which can vary from application to application. Ping provides flexible user management, allowing teams to store user identities in multiple places, including PingOne’s own directory, or in existing stores like Active Directory. This also includes easy deprovisioning when a user leaves the organization. Alongside user management, Ping provides in-depth reporting, with complete visibility and multiple pre-defined reports into user behaviours. Ping is a robust and reliable user authentication platform, especially for enterprises and development teams.
TypingDNA Verify 2FA
TypingDNA is a provider of passive authentication technologies that enable organizations to improve their access security, while ensuring a frictionless login experience for end users. Verify 2FA is their managed one-time passcode (OTP) replacement solution that uses typing biometrics to authenticate users and secure access to corporate assets—without compromising UX or generating excessive costs.
With Verify 2FA, end users are authenticated based on their typing behavior. The solution uses artificial intelligence to learn each user’s “normal” typing patterns, then requires them to verify their identity by typing four words they see on screen. The AI engine compares how they respond to the request with their baseline typing behavior; if it matches, the user is granted access. If it doesn’t match, the user is sent an SMS OTP as a secondary method of verification. This also ensures that users can securely access their corporate accounts in case of an injury, such as a broken arm, that may impact their typing ability. TypingDNA’s Verify 2FA solution integrates with Twilio and Sendgrid to enable the sending of SMS and email OTPs respectively.
Having tested TypingDNA’s Verify 2FA demo, our team was impressed with the user-friendly interface and lack of friction throughout the login experience. The solution is available via two plans: Starter and Pro. The Starter plan enables customers to sign up for free for their first year, for up to 100,000 users. The Pro plan costs $0.01 per active user per month, and can be leveraged for any number of users. As such, we recommend Verify 2FA as a secure, cost-effective alternative to using traditional SMS passcodes for user verification, for organizations of any size and in any industry.
Thales SafeNet Trusted Access
Thales SafeNet Trusted Access is a leading cloud-based user authentication solution, providing secure access to cloud services and enterprise applications with single sign-on, multi-factor authentication and granular access policies. SafeNet Trusted Access is a single, integrated authentication platform, which allows organizations to protect online identities and ensure compliance with legal requirements, while ensuing users can easily access accounts and services. SafeNet Trusted Access is well-suited to securing access for cloud-services and can help to alleviate password-related data breaches, with greater admin visibility and controls.
SafeNet Trusted Access provides secure, seamless single sign-on (SSO) which allows users to log into all of their cloud-applications a single set of verified credentials. This means that end-users get a much more convenient login experience, while vastly improving account security, by giving admins more visibility and removing the reliance on weak passwords that are difficult to secure. SafeNet Trusted Access Smart Single Sign On uses adaptive multi-factor authentication to verify user login requests and protect against account takeover. In addition, admins can set flexible policies that support a broad range of authentication methods for a variety of scenarios, which can also be applied to regional compliance requirements according to user groups.
SafeNet Trusted Access was referenced as a leading access provider by Gartner in their 2020 User Authentication market guide. The service is highly reviewed by customers, especially for its flexible authentication policies, and fast deployment process. SafeNet Trusted access provides admins with deep visibility into account access, with single sign-on and multi-factor authentication reporting at a per-user level. The solution also features integrations with other solutions, such as privileged access management providers, with hundreds of out-of-the-box integrations. SafeNet Trusted Access is a comprehensive, powerful user authentication solution, which we would recommend to organizations of all sizes looking for secure authentication and SSO for diverse user needs.
Entrust Identity Enterprise
Entrust Identity Enterprise (formally known as Entrust IdentityGuard) is a cloud identity and access management platform that secures access to apps, networks and devices. This platform provides key user authentication features, including adaptive authentication, MFA AND comprehensive access controls. This service is available as an on-premise solution with physical token-based access, and as a cloud-service. This overview will focus on the cloud solution. Entrust also offer an ‘Essentials’ version of this service aimed predominately at small and mid-sized organizations.
Entrust offers SSO across corporate applications and cloud accounts, with location-based adaptive authentication. This allows users passwordless access to their accounts, while ensuring that accounts remain secure if any risks or unusual activity is detected. Entrust offers a multi-factor authentication app for identity proofing, allowing admins to control level of authentication access from biometric face scans right through to government issued identification to ensure user authenticity.
The platform offers granular authentication policies and reports, within a simple management console. Admins can edit risk-based authentication policies and configure user policies within a simple admin dashboard. From here they can also access numerous reports into user profiles and authentication events to monitor organization wide security. The service provides out-of-the-box integrations to make deploying the service and onboarding users easier. It integrates with on-premise applications, as well as Azure and with LDAP databases. Entrust is a powerful user authentication and access management platform, with granular controls and security policies.
Okta Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication
Okta is an identity management platform that allows IT teams secure access to cloud accounts. Okta provides multi-factor authentication and single sign-on, with integrations to multiple cloud-based tools and applications through the Okta Integration Network. This includes supporting custom built applications, giving users a consistent passwordless experience across corporate accounts and providing enhanced control and visibility.
Okta Single Sign-On provides reliable passwordless authentication, allowing users to easily access all of their applications. Okta integrates with all of your web and mobile applications, with a flexible access policy engine. Okta secures access with MFA and adaptive user authentication via Okta’s Verify application. Okta’s MFA platform supports a range of different authentication methods, including security questions, one-time passcodes, smartphone notifications and biometrics.
Okta secures users across your organization with integration to AD/LDAP across multiple domains. With the Okta Access Gateway you can integrate with your custom built and on-premise applications, ideal for organizations who need to secure access to custom portals and implement role-based controls. Okta provide a range of reports, including real-time systems logs with location tracking, and application specific access reports. Okta is a scalable identity management solution ideal for larger organizations, especially those with on-premise and custom applications.
SecureAuth Identity Platform
The SecureAuth Identity Platform helps to secure company accounts without compromising on user experience and ease of account access. This platform offers multi-factor authentication, risk-based adaptive authentication policies, single sign-on and user self-service to help secure access to corporate accounts and block account takeover attempts. SecureAuth supports cloud, on-premise and hybrid deployments. This platform is built to open standards and offers a full set of APIs to enable easy integration with your existing environments.
SecureAuth supports adaptive authentication, using a broad set of risk checks and behavioral indicators in order to evaluate the log-in attempts, including device health, location, IP address and user behaviours, such as repeated failed log-ins. SecureAuth supports nearly 30 different methods of authentication checks, including mobile push notifications, biometrics and desktop one-time passwords. Augmenting MFA is Single Sign-On, which gives SecureAuth users a seamless, passwordless way to access accounts without sacrificing account security.
SecureAuth provides a range of admin controls and tools to make managing user authentication and account access easier for IT teams. Users can access self-service resources to help reduce the support burden on IT teams, including self-service password resets, enrolment and updates. SecureAuth supports multiple different deployment options and integrates with easy to use APIs, for simplified deployment and account integration. SecureAuth also provides a number of editable templates, policies and settings that help to simplify access management and improve the user authentication experience. SecureAuth offers a comprehensive user authentication and access management platform with a number of strong features. In particular, customers praise the multiple deployment options and granular policies this platform offers.