Identity Basics Talks at Identiverse

I came up with this idea related to the Introduction to Identity talk I’ll be performing at Identiverse on Monday at 1:30pm PDT. The idea is simple: curate a list of talks that, in my opinion, might help a newcomer to identiverse or identity navigate the conference in a way that might make their experience as valuable as possible. With that in mind, here you go.

Note: Always double-check the latest Identiverse agenda for any schedule or title changes before finalizing your personal plan.

On-Ramps for Newcomers

These sessions are ideal starting points if Identiverse (or identity itself) is completely new to you.

Navigating Identiverse: A Newcomer’s Guide

This type of orientation session is perfect for first-time attendees. It typically helps you:

  • Understand how the conference is structured
  • Learn what the main tracks and themes are
  • Pick sessions that match your level and interests

If you’re new, consider making this one of your first stops at the event. Heather and Alan are fantastic at helping new attendees feel welcome.

Introduction to Identity

Disclaimer: Espen Bago and I are the speakers for this talk. This is a foundational session designed to introduce the core concepts of identity and access management. Expect to hear about:

  • What “identity” actually means in a digital context
  • The building blocks of IAM (authentication, authorization, directories, and more)
  • How identity fits into broader security and business conversations

This is an excellent session for people who want a structured “Identity 101.”

Identity Basics: The Foundation of Secure Access

This is another fundamentals-focused session. It zooms in on identity as the basis of secure access:

  • Why identity is central to controlling who can do what
  • How basic IAM controls protect users and systems
  • Where identity fits into modern security architectures

If you already know a bit about security but are new to IAM specifically, this is a strong starting point.

Foundation Sessions in Identity and Privacy

These sessions help you understand adjacent areas like privacy and high-level architecture. They are very suitable for beginners who want broader context.

Introduction to Privacy

Even if your main focus is identity, a basic grounding in privacy concepts is invaluable. An introductory privacy session typically covers:

  • Key privacy principles and terminology
  • How privacy and identity intersect (consent, data minimization, user control)
  • Why privacy considerations should be built into identity systems from the start

This is highly recommended for anyone who wants to design or operate identity systems responsibly.

From IAM to Identity Security: Architecture and Roadmaps

Sessions like this often walk through:

  • How IAM capabilities fit into a larger “identity security” architecture
  • What a typical roadmap might look like as organizations mature
  • How to connect architecture decisions to business value and executive buy-in

While not strictly “Identity 101,” the content tends to be approachable for beginners with some IT or security background who want to understand “the big picture.”

Beyond Authentication: Authorization on the Frontier

Beginners usually learn authentication first (“Are you who you say you are?”). This one may be a little more advanced, but has excellent speakers. Talks that explore authorization are a nice next step:

  • What authorization is and how it differs from authentication
  • Why modern applications need more flexible, fine-grained authorization
  • How organizations are experimenting with new models and standards

Think of this as “Authorization 101.5” – a conceptual introduction to what comes after login.

Career and Professional Development in Identity

If you’re entering the identity field or considering it as a career pivot, these sessions can be especially valuable.

From Accidental Admin to Strategic Leader

This kind of session speaks directly to people who “fell into” identity and has some fantastic speakers:

  • How to move from reactive “identity admin” work to intentional leadership
  • Skills and experiences that help you grow in the identity space
  • Practical advice for charting a long-term career path

It’s ideal for early-to-mid-career professionals who want to take identity seriously as a profession.

Why Identity Is a Field Worth Building a Career In

This is more inspirational and big-picture:

  • Why identity is central to everything from security to user experience
  • How the identity ecosystem is evolving
  • What makes identity a rewarding and durable career path

These talks are great for motivation and for helping newer folks “see themselves” in the identity community.

Business-Driven IAM Prioritization (e.g., a “3R framework” talk)

Framework-oriented talks about IAM prioritization can be surprisingly beginner-friendly:

  • They show how to decide what to do first in an IAM program
  • They reinforce thinking in terms of risk, return, and resources
  • They help you see IAM as a business discipline, not just a technical one

These are particularly good for beginners who sit closer to management, architecture, or program roles.

Keynotes and Other Sessions

The keynotes are always a good source and this listing isn’t meant to be exhaustive. For future shows, the plan is to actually have a separate track for this type of material, but I’m hoping this is helpful.

Please come say hi if you get a chance at the show. One of my favorite aspects of the best identity conference in the world is getting to meet people from all walks of life. Have a great show!

Milestone Achieved!

Back at Identiverse in 2022, as I completed my final term as a founding member of the Board of Directors at IDPro and my one year as its Chair, my emotions were mixed and fairly intense. This was a close to an amazing chapter of helping build an organization whose mission I was zealously passionate about: supporting professionals in the digital identity industry and helping them succeed. Just thinking about that final Board meeting brings those memories flooding back.

Afterward, some would have been left asking themselves, ‘What’s next?’ I had no such quandary. While I was certain I would continue as an emeritus member of the Board, my new focus was crystal clear on solving a problem I saw as foundational in higher education for cybersecurity: establishing a curriculum for digital identity to address a glaring weakness in this aspect of information security. I was Don Quixote on a ‘mission to civilize’. I mean, I already had a horse, right?

It hasn’t been without its ups and downs, but thus far I’ve successfully executed three semesters’ worth of special topics courses in identity & access management over 4 years. One semester was lost due to a valuable lesson in avoiding conflicts with certain classes and days. Overwhelmingly, however, the feedback from students was incredibly positive. They absolutely loved the guest lectures and getting the perspectives from so many different aspects of this industry that I am so passionate about. I would count each one of the versions of the course as a success.

Now for the really exciting news. The digital ink is still drying from the curriculum process. The University of North Carolina at Charlotte will have one of the first-ever* college courses dedicated to teaching students about the wonderful world of digital identity!

 (note: There is a little bit of debate if this is in fact the first, but I’m rolling with it. Don’t kill my buzz.)

ITIS 4210/5210 – Introduction to Identity & Access Management (the catalog link is pending) is a hybrid course, meaning it will be available to upper-level undergraduates as well as those seeking master’s degrees.

The long term goal of the course is to make it publicly available so that any instructor of higher-ed who wishes to teach it, can and have success doing so.

There has been a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in the development of the course, and I have a huge list of people to thank. First, obviously, the support of IDPro, both the Board and membership, the contributors and editors of The Body of Knowledge, and especially Ian Glazer, Andrew Hindle, Heather Flanagan, and Sarah Cecchetti. And my guest speakers, way too many to name here, you helped plant seeds that will create a legacy with your influence in the class.

Of course, none of this happens if my alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, doesn’t call me in 2015 and ask if I’m willing to start teaching way earlier than I planned. I worked towards my master’s degree for one simple reason: I wanted to teach. Being able to do that these last 11 years has been some of the most meaningful work I’ve done in my life. To put it mildly, navigating a state university to try and create a curriculum when you’re a part-time adjunct is a nearly impossible task without some incredible support from critical people in the UNCC College of Computing & Informatics: Dean Bojan Cukic, Dr. Mohammed Shehab, Dr. Heather Lipford, and Dr. Stephanie Shuckers.  Stephanie brought the fire with her work in CiTER, and Heather was the catalyst who helped me navigate the curriculum adoption process, gaining near warp speed (in a university context) to get it across the finish line. Thank you so much for all of your support! The next chapter begins this Fall, as I teach the course as a permanent part of the University. Much more to come!

Turning the Page with IDPro

If you’re a member of IDPro, you already know part of this story, at least the professional version. Today marks the last day of my 3rd term as a member of the Board of Directors with IDPro. 5 years!

Per the bylaws of this terrific organization, a board member is limited to no more than 3 consecutive terms. It is a good rule, one that ensures that the leadership of this org does not become stale. Honestly, even if the rule wasn’t in place, this likely would have ended my time on the board regardless. To be clear, this is not out of any sense of dissatisfaction with our status or direction, quite the opposite. I could not be prouder of where we are today and where we are headed. That’s the best time for some of us to hand the reins to a new set of leaders to carry that charge forward, and I couldn’t be more excited to see Joni Brennan from DIACC and Bill Nelson from Identity Fusion step in tomorrow. This organization is in fantastic hands. But this post is more of a look back than forward.

First, I can’t thank Ian Glazer & Sarah Ceccetti enough for inviting me to join the board for its maiden voyage. I had joined the new organization as a founding member the day before during their keynote. This part was a no-brainer. What a perfect mission to support! I was deeply honored to be asked and, if I’m honest, there was a full-tilt case of imposter syndrome going on. Who the heck was I to be part of this team? How in the heck do I make this work personally given that, at the time, I had a full-time job at Merck, and had just two years prior started my dream of teaching college part-time?

When Ian asked on that day after the keynote/launch, I couldn’t in good faith answer on the spot, but 95% of me wanted to yell right there in the Sheraton Lobby, “Hell yeah I will!” Adulting is hard, however, so naturally I had to talk to my incredible wife who is steadfast in helping me realize my dreams, and of course with my employers, Merck and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, who didn’t even blink in their support of this mission. Everyone was unequivocal in their encouragement. This likely doesn’t happen for me without their support, so part of this is a note of thanks to everyone.

I can talk about digital identity challenges until I’m blue in the face, but how in the heck do I help 6 other people (at the time) run a non-profit organization? Well, the search engine is your friend and, as Pat Haggerty, one of the founders of Texas Instruments once said, “It’s a tremendously stimulating thing for each person who has learned that a small group of individuals can change the world if they really want to.” So we learned and rolled up our sleeves.

There are four things I’m proud of about my time on the board. First, though I think I drew the shortest straw on that first conference call, I was nominated to become the organization’s first treasurer. Now it’s time for another crash course on non-profit dynamics as a fiduciary! More learning!

Second, as part of that role, I’m proud to have been the architect of our enterprise tier of membership. IDPro had an obvious appeal for organizations that did identity as one of their means of business and saw value in corporate sponsorship, but we didn’t have a clear path for companies that did identity as a necessary function of their enterprise but it wasn’t their central business. Balancing between the vendor and practitioner sides of the organization was a natural tension for the org, and Ian & Sarah deftly balanced that from the outset. Adding the enterprise membership tiers furthered that path towards balance.

I’m also proud to have served as President/Board Chair of IDPro from June 2020 thru June 2021. I don’t have to tell anyone what a crazy year that was. I think my only real accomplishment during that term was keeping my hands on the steering wheel and staying on the road. And sometimes, that’s an achievement.

Finally, I couldn’t be prouder of being able to contribute to our industry’s first-ever vendor-neutral certification, the CIDPRO. That process was arguably the most grueling time I’ve spent in the organization, and likely the most rewarding for me, personally. I learned a lot during those question-building sessions. I also learned that most of the exams I had written to measure my student’s learning progress in college needed a lot of work to measure up to the quality we were exacting from this certification. In the end, I think we got it right by doing it right and I’m excited to see where this certification program goes in the future.

When I started this journey, I originally thought my challenge was going to be balancing all 3 of my professional worlds: My day job, teaching, and IDPro. And, to be sure, that was definitely part. What surprised me was how often these worlds looked more like a Venn diagram (hard not to invoke Eve Maler here). In the end, I think my pursuits in each made me better in the others. I know for a fact I’m happier for it. In spite of the hard work and the tough sledding at times, I’ve never been more joyful as a professional than I am now.

To be clear, as I indicated in this month’s installment of the IDPro newsletter, I’m not leaving IDPro, not even close. In many ways, shedding my board duties will allow me the benefit of narrowing my focus, to see if I can work with some motivated people to change the world by helping turn out more digital identity professionals by preaching the gospel in higher education. Most colleges have a serious gap in their curriculums (curriculii, Andi Hindle?) for digital identity content and I’m on a mission to civilize (and educate). I’ll succeed where Don Quixote fell short because I know I won’t be doing it alone. The overwhelming response to my talk at Identiverse regarding this subject taught me that there are many that are willing to contribute time and support to this mission, which is squarely in the wheelhouse of the mission of IDPro. From our very first press release on June 28, 2017:

“IDPro is an open, global non-profit industry association created to define, support and improve the digital identity profession through knowledge sharing, mentoring, education and certification.”

So this isn’t farewell, just an incredibly grateful note of thanks and reflection. The page turns, and the next chapter begins shortly.

Evaluating 2FA in the Era of Security Panic Theater

(note: this is a writeup of a talk that I gave at DerbyCon 2019 and at UNCC’s CyberSecurity Symposium in 2020. Thought it would be useful to get it in blog form, especially with the Solar Winds event unfolding.)

It seems like today’s world offers constant reminders of how insecure our digital lives can be. As a security professional, part of my job is to monitor for threats to my company and the organizations with which I have a relationship. A significant part of that effort lies in assessing how likely or realistic those threats are. If you believed every infosec vulnerability headline you see come across twitter, it would be easy to feel somewhat like chicken little, with the sky ever falling. I’ve actually coined a term for this phenomenon (though I’m not sure if I actually originated it, but Google seems to think so): Security Panic Theater.

If this term sounds mildly familiar, it is because of its proximity to the phrase ‘security theater’. We experience this pretty regularly whenever we attend a major sporting event like the World Series and we have to go through long lines where people wave a wand over us to ensure my keychain knife doesn’t get admitted to the stadium. This takes place even though the track record of seizing weapons that would matter is pretty poor. But the mere act of this experience makes patrons feel safer. This is even worse when we travel and pass through TSA’s gauntlet of screeners. Consistent penetration tests reveal a woeful rate of actually detecting items that could cause us harm while we are in flight. To add to the insult of this process, there is a comic reality with what actually is seized. I’ll let comedian Steve Hofstetter explain:

If you bring too much liquid, the TSA confiscates it and throws it away, in case it’s a bomb. So they throw it away. In case it’s a bomb. In the garbage can, right next to them. With all the other possible bombs. In the area with the most amount of people.

In case it’s a bomb.

Steve Hofstetter

Security Panic Theater (SPT) is a bit of a different experience. The process for SPT goes something like this:

Vulnerability/breach announced regarding a product or control (x) [Security]

+ Inflammatory internet headline(s) regarding (x) [Panic], which leads to the conclusion:

Product or Control (x) is useless/defeated [Theater]

A relatively recent example of this was the release of a penetration testing toolkit by Polish researcher Piotr Duszyński named Modlishka, which loosely translates in English to Mantis. The central feature of this toolkit was the use of a reverse proxy that could accelerate a phishing flow by sending a user to a spoofed URL, but the rest of the web experience was as the user expected. This enabled a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack to capture both the credential and the SMS code being used by the user.

The significance of this new framework didn’t lie with the fact that you could now phish any two-factor authentication (2FA) method that used one time passwords (OTP). What made this release notable was that it was now significantly easier to accelerate the phishing flow because you didn’t have to spin up a fake site. A reverse proxy would do the work for you. To be clear, that is certainly noteworthy, but also not new.

However, to hear the twitterverse and online media outlets talk about it, you’d think all our credentials, even if protected by 2FA, were suddenly moments away from being captured by hackers. Now, to be fair, there are some responsible journalists who try to treat these topics fairly, but even a sane article can often be overridden by a clickbait title like “Is 2FA Dead?”

Let’s get a few basics clear for the sake of sanity & clarity:

2FA can’t be killed

2FA represents a combination of factors for authentication, not a single technology or pattern. The last few years alone have had a litany of episodes where a particular technology may be at risk (often temporarily, or misleadingly so), such as:

RSA tokens were allegedly cracked (mostly not true)

SS7 flaw will drain all your bank accounts (true, but hard to implement)

NIST Killed SMS 2FA (sort of, but not really)

Modlishka makes SMS useless (sort of, but not really) 

Google Security keys have Bluetooth flaw (recall for some, not all)

Yubikey FIPS keys flawed (recall for some, not all) 

Apple promoted modifications to SMS 2FA for improved anti-phishing strength & joined FIDO’s board. 

2FA implementation in 2020 Iowa Caucus renders app nearly unusable

And even today as I update this, the SolarWinds hackers bypassed OWA’s 2FA because they compromised the server hosting the private key.

That last one hasn’t had enough oxygen yet for the 2FA headlines to blaze, and they will, but both the company analyzing the hack and Bruce Schneier emphasize:

It should be noted this is not a vulnerability with the MFA provider and underscores the need to ensure that all secrets associated with key integrations, such as those with an MFA provider, should be changed following a breach.

Notice the trend here? While there is some truth for most of these from a vulnerability perspective, the reality is that these technologies still work to protect your credentials. Apple’s recent announcement has its own debate worth talking about (and has been on IDPro’s Slack site) and the debacle in Iowa shows that any technology is a dumpster fire waiting to happen if its implementation is designed poorly.

The diversity of the 2FA landscape makes it stronger, not more vulnerable. 

Let’s take a look at the following categories of authentication: 

Pretty diverse to be killed with a single vulnerability, I would think! Now let’s overlay which ones have at least one known vulnerability:

If we look at all the ones in red, that would be pretty disheartening to the casual observer. That’s where journalists and analysts need to take special care in talking about vulnerabilities. The real story doesn’t fit neatly into a simple headline regarding the vitality of the authentication landscape.

All methods of 2FA are still incredibly effective (some more than others) 

Google published a study of some internal findings on various methods used to secure their public credentials. Yes, SMS should be the low hanging fruit of 2FA but guess what, even this well-beaten pinata of 2FA stopped 76% of targeted attacks and nearly 100% of automated & bulk phishing attacks!

Microsoft recently published some numbers to similar effect, that the risk of account compromise is reduced by 99% using multi-factor authentication (MFA). I’d say 2FA is far from dead in that context.

Yes, we should get rid of the 2 in 2FA, long live MFA*

The biggest reason for this is that users can be more secure, and less inconvenienced when they have access to multiple ways of authenticating instead of one token combined with a password that can be lost, or a phone that can be upgraded and lock a user out. Without promoting one vendor, I can say thoughtfully that I have several methods to secure my key accounts and that diversity of options, I believe, is the key to giving our users the power of choice as to how they want to login. That power is how we eventually do reduce passwords to an edge use case. The key is that more sites need to support those methods to incentivize adoption. We’re not there yet, but the last few years show a lot of promise in eventually achieving that goal.

The reality is, even the coolest methods of authentication will eventually find a vulnerability. History proves this. But we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater when those are discovered. We fix it, learn from it, and stay secure. Let’s leave the theater to the actors, where it belongs.

* For another blog post, but I’m wondering if MFA needs to be retired as a concept and we simply focus on the strength of authentication. To be continued…

SMS as a 2FA Method

I’ll be the first one to admit that I jumped the gun a little when Twitter announced that their founder, Jack Dorsey, had his account hijacked.

Initially, no one (including yours truly) had details as to how his account was taken over. However, all fingers pointed at a SMS jacking, which wasn’t terribly far from the truth. The assumption was that this allowed them to use SMS combined with some knowledge of Jack’s password to access the account. That turned out to be inaccurate:

So, yeah, it wasn’t a 2FA hack, but it did show how fragile an account can be when SMS is involved. There’s a reason NIST deprecated SMS as an out-of-band factor of authentication when they updated their 800-63-3 standard.

SMS is still dominant as a method of two-factor authentication because it is one of the lowest barriers to entry, both for the identity provider (IdP) and the user. It is also arguably the least secure method, as Jack Dorsey’s case proved.

That said, if SMS is your only option for 2FA, use it. In the case of Twitter, it is not (much to their credit). You can use both an application based method (such as Microsoft Authenticator, Google, or Authy) and/or a Security Key leveraging FIDO’s Universal 2-Factor protocol (U2F). For account recovery, you can store a backup code in your password manager (or somewhere else).

A key can cost as cheap as $20 and can be used to secure a number of your critical accounts.

Twitter caught a lot of flack on this case, somewhat unfairly. That being said, I do think they should remove SMS as a method for 2FA. Mobile apps for 2FA are pretty ubiquitous and a low barrier to entry for all users. So help your user base out, and turn it off. That wouldn’t have saved Jack, but that is a post for another day.

Slides from Recent PAM Talk

This talk was originally given at RSA, but I was able to do an expanded version recently at IT Hot Topics. A few have asked for the slides, so here they are. I actually hope to write out the talk in full at some point as a blog post, but I have two more talks to write so probably not soon.

Applying a Rheostat to Local Admin Rights

“Think of everything you do in terms of a rheostat, rather than a switch.” Horseman Mark Rashid

In information security, we often measure the controls that are deployed in terms of the friction, or resistance that is presented to the user. In digital identity, we speak of balancing the user experience against the friction that is experienced in the name of security. Requiring two-factor authentication is a good example.

In information security, an equivalent of a rheostat might be the principle of least privilege: grant the user no more (or less) privilege than they need to succeed at a given task. If possible, suspend that privilege while it is not in use.

When first discussing privileged access management in any organization, regardless of their size, the first question I would ask of the stakeholders is: do your users retain local admin privileges on their desktop or laptop devices?

According to a recent study by Avecto, over 94% of the critical vulnerabilities that Microsoft patched over the last year could be mitigated by removing local admin access from a user’s profile on their desktop. In the same study, that number closes at 100% for Edge and Internet Explorer vulnerabilities if the user is running a lower privilege profile for their browsing. In cybersecurity, it is often said that there are no ‘silver bullets’ in protecting users, but this one gets pretty darned close.

Removing local admin rights can feel like IT is throwing a switch on privilege. That can be seen sometimes as an extreme measure to protect users. I think that depends greatly on how it is communicated, and how the experience is delivered. Is it a switch, or does the resistance vary, like a rheostat?

Justin Richer of Bespoke Identity echoes this concept in a recent blog:

In physical systems, friction has a way of wearing out parts and causing mechanisms to fail. Otherwise productive energy is lost as heat to the environment. It’s no wonder we use it as a metaphor in computer science and seek to eliminate it. But at the same time, friction is also responsible for the ability to stop and start motion. For things like wheels and pulleys to work, they need friction between certain parts. In other words, friction in physical systems can be useful, but only when it exists as a tool and not as a byproduct.

I’d like to posit that not every action the user can take in an application should be equally easy. Instead of being eliminated, friction in a user experience needs to be carefully controlled. For example, if an action is destructive, especially if it can’t be undone, then it’s generally a very good idea to stop the user before they break everything and make sure they realize what they’re doing.

Ray Hunt is often credited with being one of the original thinkers behind natural horsemanship. When working with horses, he thought it was important to “make the wrong thing hard and the right thing easy.” That seems to be a pretty solid UX principle. How can we apply this when the user is working away on their laptop or other computing devices?

Extending Justin’s message, execution of a higher privilege other than that of a user should include some friction, but how much? Are you formatting a system partition on a disk? Probably high friction. Are you updating your mouse drivers? Probably low friction. How about installing new software?That probably depends. If it is a known publisher with a signed distribution (possibly on a whitelist of apps), perhaps we give the user no friction. Right now we get more of a binary method. You either have the keys to your PC/device kingdom, or you don’t.

We had some early experiences with a form of variable friction starting with Windows Vista (thru Windows 10) and its UAC or User Access Control. By default, the UAC was set to high, which meant the user had to click a box every time they installed software, updated a non-windows driver, or executed a variety of functions that could result in system changes. Problem is: this wasn’t really a rheostat, it was a switch. The rheostat (though still, not really) was in the form of a global slider (with settings) to determine when the user would be challenged during those events.  For users, this often became a game of “how do I make this window go away permanently”? From a security perspective, this is a disastrous result. A simple search of “disable UAC” shows how effective this has become.

In the enterprise context, we have a little more control. We can prevent users from altering UAC settings. We can also revoke their local admin privileges. But we’re still back to the old switch pattern. Probably 80% of the time, this isn’t a problem. But when a VP needs to install a new (non-standard) conferencing client to collaborate with a partner and they lack the rights and there is no one immediately available to help them do so, then the phone calls begin.

This is not to say we lack solutions for this today. There are a few vendors in the enterprise privilege management (EPM) space that can help with this problem, and leverage a variety of controls. But how many companies focus on this as an early priority in overall security strategy?  Based on the latest Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report (DBIR), far too few. There are many things to note in the report, but the one that got my attention is that 88% of breaches are still leveraging methods mentioned in the 2014 report.

Purchasing an EPM tool isn’t a requirement, especially for smaller companies. But, once you get into scale challenges, EPM solutions will make deployment and management much easier.

If you want to eat your own dog food, yank the local admin privileges from the account you are viewing this post from (if you haven’t already). Then make a log of the number of times you’ve had to leverage an admin credential to do your activities on the device. I did, and it surprised me how little I actually needed it.

EPM vendors have something going for them, but I would love a low-cost consumer version of this capability. Start with a whitelist of the top 100 consumer applications and perhaps grow it from there with vendors that have good release/update hygiene. Make this tool more of a rheostat, and only increase the resistance when the user is trying to do something that incurs proportionate risk, like opening an attachment from an email that results in changes to the system. Our users will be happier, and more secure.

 

 

Why UX Matters or How Color (and other) Choices Can Ruin an Identity Experience for Users

I’m not writing this to shame a company, though I do plan to share this post with them in hopes that they can make some adjustments that will benefit customers in the future. As such, I’ll do my best to mask their identity as much as reasonably possible.

Before doing so, I want to back up a second. When I am attempting to convey to someone how critical digital identity is to their product or service, I start with this premise: The experience of managing their digital identity is often their very first interaction with your product or service. If a login is required, it is usually the proverbial front door every time they use your service. Getting that right, consistently, is critical to your success.

Sunday, last week I had an interesting UX lesson in how colors can influence user choices and, in this case, result in a horrible experience trying to manage an identity/account. To be clear, it wasn’t just colors that created the experience, but I’ll illuminate the additional issues below.

Due to an illness, I was trying to access my remote care service that let’s me speak with a doctor for basic first aid/primary care. It is a terrific service for times when I have poison ivy (usually once a year) or an average ear infection (not yearly, but pretty common). It usually saves me a primary care visit and I get a script called into my pharmacy pretty quickly. In some years, I talk to them more than I do my primary care physician. It is usually a huge time and money saver.

To expedite receiving a call, I have a profile setup thru their website. I did this a few years ago. Today, I tried to login, but they had changed their website since I last visited (I think), and this is what I was presented with (pardon the masking, but trying to be helpful, not critical):

Now, bear in mind, this particular case was kind of urgent. So time was of the essence. I quickly looked at the screen and couldn’t quickly remember if I was considered a client or a member. Now, the bright blue color login is for members, but the bright blue section below it correlated to businesses trying to partner with them. That created some confusion so I chose the white login button for the client login portal.

Using my 1Password shortcut, I attempted to login. No luck, bad username or password. My username is a little complex, so I tried a few more times for good measure. No joy. Well, the website had changed, maybe they force a password reset every so often, like after design change and maybe I missed the notice or it was dumped as spam. So I initiate a password reset, and get this screen.

Seems straightforward, so I input my username and email address. The system accepts my parameters and I get a reset link sent to my email address. I click on the link and get this:

That’s odd. Naturally, the security geek immediately starts wondering if I have a man-in-the-middle attack going on, so I attempt it again. Same result. Once more, no luck.

At this point, I just call the 800 number to request a call. After a wait of about 40 minutes (unusual, given my previous experience) I get an attendant and we navigate the process to get a doctor queued to call me.

Now, it may be blindingly obvious to some (clearly, not me) that I may have gone to the wrong portal. I never thought to go back and attempt to use the member portal instead. At the time, I didn’t even think there were two portals. After talking with the service operator, she initiated a manual password reset for me and naturally told me to go to THIS page:

A ha! I’m masking this page some, but the rest of the screen makes it quite clear this was enabled for customers of the service. Naturally, armed with my new password I was able to login and update my password and security question. So I was off on the wrong branch of the site flow the whole time. A single, understandable, but ultimately incorrect choice resulted in almost an hour of wasted time. Besides the lessons learned for yours truly, I think there are a few for the vendor.

First, proper error handling is one of the first key tests for an effective user experience. If I’m using a valid member portal user ID on the client portal, maybe test the ID against the member portal and offer to redirect? That would have avoided this entirely.

Second, while I don’t know that their identity stores are unified or linked, I was able to initiate a reset of my member user ID’s password from the client portal. That’s bad. Had that failed, I might have at least suspected my ID was messed up and gone a different route. Again, checking that ID against the member portal may have saved a step here. Either way, accepting the member portal ID as valid and sending me a reset link to the client portal that kicked back with an expired token reinforced the idea that I was in the right place but something was broken. This ultimately ties into lesson one regarding error handling.

Next, reconsider the color choices on the main page. Perhaps align both the member login color with the member solicitation screen? And perhaps align the client login with the client solicitation color. Consistent coloring can reinforce users choices when they are unsure.

Also, maybe reconsider the ‘client’ term vs. member? I realize the website eventually clarifies, but maybe consider the term ‘partner’? Member vs. Partner is a pretty clear distinction. I don’t think this is critical, but it could be useful. I know patient isn’t in vogue these days, but the patient portal likely would have landed me in the right spot.

Finally, some language on each portal page to assist the user if they selected the wrong portal might be beneficial. The client portal in particular is fairly sparse. They do a good job with the member portal (if I had actually clicked on it).

Now, in full disclosure, I now also have their mobile app installed, which has a significantly better user experience. If I were to guess, it is designed for members only. Therefore, the confusion I had with the dueling web portals couldn’t happen. It also has TouchID/FaceID integration so that’s even better. Aligning the UX of mobile with the web site would be a nice next step to get an even greater consistency for the customer. They should also market their mobile app on the web page.

So, in reality, 2-3 hopefully minor changes could improve this vendor’s client UX considerably. I was fortunate, and persistent, so this ended well. But, what if the user was put off by the wait time and the password reset problem and went to the ER or Urgent Care (this happened on a Sunday) instead? That was a huge difference in cost and opportunity cost for whomever was behind me in line.

While this dealt with a more serious type of service experience, businesses undergoing digital transformations should consider hiring people that can look at these flows (better than I do, as I am not a UX expert) and give them proper guidance. Even if your service is selling t-shirts or fidget spinners, helping your users navigate your service easily from an identity context can be the difference between a sale or a closed browser. Or better, you’ve created a repeat customer.

Deploying Identity Solutions – ‘Field of Dreams’ Doesn’t Work

(Note: this topic is background for a panel that I’m participating on June 20th at the Cloud Identity Summit, in Chicago, Illinois. I wrote this in hopes of informing some of the context around the panel, though I’m sure it will be revisited in some respect during our session.)

Knock, Knock: Identity is here. Identity Who? Exactly.

Tuesday, June 20th, 4:20pm, Chicago Ballroom IX

The genesis for this panel took place during dinner following the Ping Identify conference in New York. Rob Davis from TIAA & I were talking about some of our challenges in deploying identity solutions, especially ones where customer, stakeholder, or developer engagement are required. In other words, pretty much everything except directory synchronization. Even governance solutions, like certification or privileged access management, that had the benefit of the ‘stick’ approach to service adoption; seemed to lag in engagement even when doing so wasn’t necessarily voluntary. You could lead the horse to water (you knew there would be a horse analogy, right?), but you couldn’t make them drink.

The simple reality was, this is no ‘Field of Dreams’. We built it, but they didn’t come to participate. Password recovery and management solutions are probably the easiest one to point to as an example of this failure. Nearly every enterprise worth their salt has deployed a password management and recovery product and yet password recovery is perpetually listed as the number one reason users call the help desk!

Rob & I both agreed that this would be an excellent subject for a talk at CIS. So I commenced finding the right people that could both explain their own challenges in this space and hopefully offer up solutions that might help others, including myself, succeed in the future. Between Rob & I, we had both financial services and healthcare/life sciences covered, but I wanted diversity of perspective. Through some networking, I think we put together a really great breadth of knowledge and experience across many industries. In addition to yours truly, we also have:

Bernard Diwakar – Security & IAM Architect at Intuit

Frank Villavicencio – CPO, Security Management Services at ADP

Steve Hutchinson – Principal Identity Architect at GE

And finally, no panel is successful without an awesome moderator, so naturally I asked Ian Glazer of Salesforce, Kantara, & IDESG if he’d do the honors in spite of his incredible schedule at the conference. Some promise of bourbon may have been part of the exchange, but in the end I think we’ve got a killer lineup of identity pros that will share their wit, wisdom, and experience on this important subject.

But wait! Part of what will make this a successful session is great questions and shared experiences from the audience. So bring your own stories and let’s make this a conversation!

Unfortunately, the scheduling gods put Rob’s talk against the panel, so we had to go to the bullpen. See you in Chicago! If you can’t make it, follow the action using #CloudIDSummit tag on Twitter.

RSA Thoughts, Part 1

(photo credit: Brian Campbell)

I think teaching eviscerated my time for blogging. Going to try and put more energy in it this year. Naturally, I’m going big on this revival with a two part post about my experience at the RSA Conference, to the best of my knowledge the largest security conference on the planet (especially if you count their global adjuncts).

This was my first RSA, both as an attendee and speaker. I thought Oracle OpenWorld was huge. Good gravy. I think estimates had it at about 45,000 attendees. In spite of the size, kudos to RSA and their management vendor who run an incredibly tight conference for that scale.

On one hand it’s awesome that we have so many people, vendors, and speakers focused in the information security space. On the other, its a touch overwhelming and nearly impossible to get to all the content you want. Overall I think that’s a good problem to have, because this is a tough problem to solve. It was refreshing that they featured an identity track (a first, I believe) at the conference.

The good news is they make much of the content available online, including some videos of the sessions. Mine has audio but no video, which isn’t a loss, heh. It isn’t very technical, but has a solid foundation on some of the key elements and challenges that go into a Privileged Access Management program. I’ve delivered this talk at the Cloud Identity Summit, BSides Charlotte, and IT Hot Topics, but this was definitely the most mature version of the talk because of the time that has passed and the lessons learned.

My talk was on Thursday, which originally I loved because I thought it would give me more time to prepare. I was mistaken. This talk is by far the most mature of the ones I’ve developed so very little additional time was needed to update it for the conference. I don’t know necessarily that I would have wanted to go on Tuesday, as there were some serious heavyweights in the industry to compete against. My biggest concern was making sure I kept my energy balanced throughout the sessions, networking, and vendor parties so that I could be sharp as possible when it came time to take the stage. It required missing a few tracks, but I eventually achieved that.

I discovered in the hours leading up to my talk that seat reservations had reached a level that they created an overflow room in case demand exceeded capacity. That was extremely flattering, but I did my best not to make it bigger than it was. The talk wasn’t changing, or the stage. I was thrilled that so many people were interested in this area, because I think sometimes it gets lost in between the traditional domains of identity & access management and information security. Clearly others felt the same way given the number that turned up.

Overall, I couldn’t be more pleased with how the talk went. Even though the hall was a little dark so they could broadcast it to the overflow room, I could feel the engagement and energy from the audience. It showed when I finished, as the questions that emerged were insightful and thought provoking. Once we wrapped up, I went outside and answered even more questions, happily, for another 40 minutes. Such great conversation with such intelligent and thoughtful people! I retired to the speaker’s lounge to decompress a little and make some mental notes from some of the questions that were asked. (photo credit: Scott Bollinger)

I know I’m kind of working this post backwards, but the next chapter will have some of my takeaways from the conference, both in hallway conversations and some of the tracks and keynotes I attended.

I’m writing this post at the airport with a feeling of extreme gratitude for the opportunity that was presented to me, and all of the support that I’ve received from countless people to help make this conference a personal and professional success.

PS. Thanks to Ian Glazer for the support.