Posts by Andy Smith
Andy Smith is vice president of product marketing. Smith’s expertise spans twenty plus years and he will drive Centrify’s identity services security products and platform strategy. Prior to his Centrify appointment, Smith was responsible for Oracle’s go-to-market strategy for the company’s global identity and security business unit, where he successfully launched multiple security cloud services to many millions of users that transitioned customers from on-premises license to cloud.
Hot Topics
New Centrify Report: Stop Putting Up with Bad Karaoke and Start Learning about Zero Trust Privilege
By Andy Smith, June 4, 2019
You know when you’re hanging out with friends, maybe doing a little drinking, and somebody suggests that you go to a karaoke bar? “Heck yeah! Sounds fun, I’m a GREAT singer!” The letdown is always when somebody records your performance and you listen to it (or worse, watch it on YouTube or social media) the next day…. “Oh, I’m not as good as I thought I was, but I’m still not willing to take any voice lessons.” The same could be said about Privileged Access Management. We all know it’s a good thing to do, but we tend to be…
Centrify Perspective
Centrify Named a March 2019 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Privileged Access Management
By Andy Smith, March 20, 2019
At Centrify we are proud of our customers and the success they experience with our solutions. Today we are proud that our customers are speaking out and providing valuable insights to the market about their experience with Centrify. This morning, Gartner announced that Centrify has been recognized as a March 2019 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Privileged Access Management. In its announcement, Gartner explains, “The Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice is a recognition of vendors in this market by verified end-user professionals, taking into account both the number of reviews and the overall user ratings.” To ensure fair evaluation,…
Centrify Perspective
Gartner Names PAM a Top Security Project (AGAIN!) in 2019
By Andy Smith, February 21, 2019
Last June at the 2018 Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit, the analyst firm issued a “Smarter with Gartner” paper outlining the Top 10 security projects for 2018, which included Privileged Account Management. While Gartner clarified that the ten projects were in no particular order, PAM was right there at the top. This was not a surprise to Centrify, as we’ve seen global cybersecurity spending reach $124 billion but privileged credential abuse is still the leading attack vector. Forrester estimates that 80% of breaches involve a privileged identity, and that 66% of companies have been breached five times or more….
Centrify Perspective
Gartner Names Centrify a Leader in Magic Quadrant for Privileged Access Management (PAM)
By Andy Smith, December 7, 2018
On December 3, 2018 Gartner released The Magic Quadrant for Privileged Access Management, Q4 2018. Evaluating 14 vendors, Gartner positioned Centrify in the LEADERS quadrant. Here at Centrify, we believe this is a strong validation of Centrify’s Zero Trust Privilege approach to privileged access management. A complimentary version of this report is available for download here. As breaches and attacks grow, the market is finally realizing that importance of PAM not just for compliance, but as a strong security control. At Gartner’s Security and Risk Management Summit in June 2018, Neil MacDonald noted in the keynote that PAM was one of the Top…
Hot Topics
Forrester Names Centrify a Leader in Privileged Identity Management
By Andy Smith, November 14, 2018
Today Forrester Research released The Forrester Wave™: Privileged Identity Management, Q4 20181. Evaluating 11 vendors, Forrester named Centrify a Leader. Here at Centrify, we believe this is a strong validation of Centrify’s Zero Trust Privilege approach to privileged identity management. A complimentary version of this report is available for download here. Centrify is redefining the legacy approach to Privileged Identity Management by delivering cloud-ready Zero Trust Privilege to secure modern enterprise use cases. Zero Trust Privilege mandates a “never trust, always verify, enforce least privilege” approach. Centrify Zero Trust Privilege helps customers grant least privilege access based on verifying who is requesting access, the…
Centrify Perspective
Gartner and Centrify Agree – PAM is #1 Security Project for 2018
By Andy Smith, July 25, 2018
CISOs are overwhelmed with a multitude of projects that are pulling at their time and resources. All of these projects feel important and usually will have some benefit, but nobody has the time or budget to do it all. So which projects will give you the biggest bang for your buck? How do security professionals prioritize these initiatives? At this year’s Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit, Gartner’s Neil MacDonald revealed the analyst firm’s top 10 recommended security projects for 2018. MacDonald stated that CISOs need to, “focus on projects that reduce the most amount of risk and have the…
Centrify Perspective
Real-Life Exposed Privileged Identity Theft
By Andy Smith, March 27, 2018
Have you ever had your identity stolen? Credit cards obtained under your name that were not yours? Most of us have, and what a pain it can be to stop excess charges, get reimbursed, close down those accounts, and repair your damaged credit. It can take years to recover from such an invasion. While we know what it’s like in our personal lives, many of us don’t pay attention to the damage that could be caused in our professional careers, especially with privileged accounts like database access. One reason for this disconnect is because the breaches typically are not financial…
From the Cloud
Break the Trust and Stop the Breach: The Zero Trust Security Model
By Andy Smith, February 19, 2018
As 2018 is upon us, it’s time to take stock of our new realities and commit to better behavior that benefits us and our companies. The discussion of the perimeterless enterprise is not new. In fact, the term “de-perimeterisation” was coined by Jon Measham, a former employee of the UK’s Royal Mail in a research paper, and subsequently used by the Jericho Forum back in 2005. The concept is easily understood. Are your employees using their mobile phones to access business data? Do they use SaaS apps like O365, Salesforce, or ServiceNow? If so, then your organization is a perimeterless enterprise. Access to your enterprise…
From the Cloud
Moving to the Cloud? Six Best Practices for AWS Security
By Andy Smith, November 28, 2017
When moving to an AWS infrastructure, responsibility for security is shared between Amazon and your organization. Amazon’s Shared Responsibility Model clearly shows where both parties’ responsibilities begin and end. AWS secures the lower layers of the infrastructure stack, while the organization is accountable for everything else up to and including the application layer. Six security best practices for organizations moving to AWS Extend your common security model Conventional security and compliance concepts still apply in the cloud. Whether we’re talking about existing apps migrating to the cloud or new ones being built there, they must be secured and good practices…
