New location, new month, and yet another hugely successful Gartner Identity and Access Management Summit 2023. Congratulations Henrique Bernardes B Teixeira, Senior Director at Gartner, for shepherding another great event. Your energy and drive continue to produce amazing results.
This year’s event had even more energy, more attendees, and even better sessions. Here’s a summary of our observations and highlights:
Keynotes:
Gartner Opening Keynote: Lead Like a Wolf – Gartner’s Vice President and Gartner Fellow, Tina Nunno’s keynote explored how being a wolf can make you a better leader for your team and a great asset for your organization. She inspired all of us but especially those in security organizations dealing with challenges at various levels.
Guest Keynote: Your Brain Is Good at Inclusion — Except When It’s Not – Dr. Steve Robbins’ also known as the “Diversity Expert” shed light on why DE&I (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) is so critical and an advantage in the workplace today was awe-inspiring and emotional bringing many to tears. A lot to learn from such an inspiring leader for sure.
Other Notable Sessions:
The State of Access Management, 2023 – Senior Director of Gartner, Michael Kelley’s analogy of comparing soap bubbles with identity-first security was captivating. It’s encouraging to see the 33% growth in access management. SecureAuth got an honorable mention due to the strict requirements for the MQ, and we are appreciative of that, especially given our cutting-edge next-gen authentication solution, Arculix focused on passwordless, continuous authentication.
Go Passwordless Whenever You Can, Wherever You Can and The State of User Authentication– Ant Allan, VP Analyst at Gartner, delivered two sessions on authentication that were as enlightening as always with great analogies and simple explanations. We were excited to observe that most of the recommendations in the presentations map exactly to what SecureAuth’s solution provides with continuous authentication.
SecureAuth: MFA is so 80’s – Use Continuous Authentication to Get Invisible MFA – Our CEO Paul Trulove’s presentation drew a packed house with over 220 attendees, and the enthusiasm of everyone in the session was sensational. Paul enthralled everyone as he provided in-depth knowledge on the workings of A/ML biobehavioral risk analyzers and practical tips on authentication to the IAM community. Paul weaved in great examples to make the case that traditional MFAs are an 80s thing and do not provide the protection an organization needs in today’s environment. He also discussed the need for enterprises to move quickly to invisible MFA with continuous authentication that provides a frictionless and more secure solution through all stages of the user’s journey – Pre-Auth, At-Auth, and Post-Authorization.
Although I was planning on attending other sessions specifically- Avoid the Breach With Identity Threat Detection and Response by Henrique Teixeira Senior Director, at Gartner, The State of Customer IAM, 2023 by Mary Ruddy, VP Analyst at Gartner and The State of IAM Program Management by Rebecca Archambault, Senior Director at Gartner, I couldn’t take more time away from an amazingly busy SecureAuth booth.
Hopping SecureAuth Booth
Speaking of the busy booth, SecureAuth’s main theme was MFA is so 80s. Get passwordless continuous authentication with invisible MFA. The long line of attendees waiting to view our demonstrations was non-stop from the time we started till the time the expo hall closed. The energy was unbelievable. The audience was super excited to learn about Arculix, a risk-based continuous authentication solution and talk to our experts. The message was resonating extremely well with our prospects and customers. And why wouldn’t it? The smart IAM and cybersecurity professionals know that old ways of authentication with traditional MFAs are prime targets for MFA bombing and man-in-the-middle attacks (MitM). On top of that, unnecessary friction caused by 16+ prompts a day for the average user results in productivity loss and waste of time. Log in once and then access all your apps, VPN, VDI, SSO, etc without passwords with authentication occurring behind the scenes and invisibly by the AI/ML based risk-engine just makes logical sense. Finally, authentication is about the entire user journey and not just at one point in time. Arculix not only provides pre-auth and at-auth but also post-authorization to continuously authenticate the user behind the sales and prevent any out-of-the-norm behavior. We also encouraged the audience to check out our ROI calculator, to calculate the savings Arculix can provide.
Customer Appreciation Dinner
We like to take every opportunity we can get to thank our customers for their business. The Gartner IAM Summit was a great place to show our appreciation. Our customer dinner at Del Frisco’s was very well attended and we had great conversations that covered topics ranging from their pain points and how our solution can help them with those pain points to families to pets and other topics. It’s all about relationships and we all had a memorable evening.
Thanks again to all of you who joined us for a conversation at the booth, at Paul’s presentation, at our customer dinner, or at the bar after hours for a nightcap. We look forward to seeing many of you at RSA Conference 2023, Identiverse, and other events. The next Gartner IAM Summit is not till December 2024 so Henrique Teixeira will get some reprieve for the next few months.
