IBM Receives Frost & Sullivan Customer Value Leadership Award for its Mobile Identity and Access Management Solutions

-- The company's ability to improve security levels without compromising on end-user convenience is an integral part of its value proposition

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, May 20, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on its recent analysis of mobile authentication, Frost & Sullivan recognizes IBM with the 2014 Global Frost & Sullivan Award for Customer Value Leadership. Central to the company's success in generating value for customers is the integration of various mobile security, mobile identity, and access management solutions. IBM's strong value proposition with regards to the provisioning of context-based authentication for multiple mobile device types and mobile applications has also been instrumental to its success.

"When it comes to identity and access management, organizations often face a trade-off between improving security levels and delivering greater end-user convenience," said Frost & Sullivan Senior Industry Analyst Mario Fernandez. "IBM breaks the security/end-user convenience trade-off through its IBM Security Access Manager for Mobile appliance."

The IBM Security Access Manager for Mobile appliance's risk engine determines the risk of an end user's authentication attempt by comparing it with a historical behavior profile of that user, which contains information related to the volume, type and frequency of transactions; Internet protocol reputation; geographic location; and device fingerprinting. On ascertaining the risk, the appropriate authentication method is applied. While low-risk access attempts require simple authentication methods such as a password, high-risk access attempts might involve hardware or software one-time password tokens.

To determine the appropriate authentication method, the IBM Security Access Manager for Mobile risk engine also pays heed to the application or data that the end user wants to access. For instance, if an end user wants to access a business-critical application or confidential data, then they must use an authentication method with a high degree of irrefutability. Essentially then, security becomes context-based and organizations can establish—and seamlessly enforce—access management policies without introducing greater end-user inconvenience.

The value proposition of IBM's Security Access Manager for Mobile appliance is enhanced through the integration of other IBM products, including IBM Security Access Manager for Web, which adds content security capabilities to protect against attacks such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting. Likewise, IBM's Federated Identity Manager, which supports the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), WS-Federation and OpenID standard protocols, can enable federated single sign-on. This facilitates the integration of cloud services, such as Google Apps or Office 365, which also support the above-mentioned protocols.

In a bid to remain ahead of its competitors, IBM added two important security companies and their corresponding products to its portfolio in 2013—Trusteer and Fiberlink. The company has also drawn up a future-proof product roadmap that recognizes that biometric authentication methods and contactless technologies will play a prominent role in enabling mobile access.

"Already, IBM's scientists have developed an algorithm to determine biometric-based authentication risk scores and risk analysis that can be incorporated into IBM Security Access Manager for Mobile," said Fernandez.

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that demonstrates excellence in implementing strategies that proactively create value for its customers with a focus on improving the return on the investment that customers make in its services or products. This award recognizes the company's inordinate focus on enhancing the value that its customers receive, beyond simply good customer service, leading to improved customer retention and, ultimately, customer base expansion.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.

About IBM Security

IBM Security offers one of the most advanced and integrated portfolios of enterprise security products and services. The portfolio, supported by world-renowned IBM X-Force research and development, provides the security intelligence to help organizations protect their people, data, applications and infrastructure. IBM offers security solutions for identity and access management,  database security, application development, risk management, endpoint management, next-generation intrusion protection and more. IBM operates one of the world's broadest security research and development, and delivery organizations. IBM monitors 15 billion security events per day in more than 130 countries and holds more than 3,000 security patents. For more information on IBM security solutions, X-Force reports, and webinars, please visit: www.ibm.com/security.

About Frost & Sullivan

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