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Key criteria for choosing perfect MFA solution for your business
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Scott Grebe

5 Key Criteria for Choosing the Perfect MFA Solution for Your Business

"Ninety-nine percent of attacks can be blocked with multi-factor authentication (MFA)” is an oft-discussed quote from 2019. Since then, MFA has since become a necessary defense for any cybersecurity strategy to defend against attacks.

But times change, and what solved our challenges in the past doesn’t necessarily work today, at least not in the same form. Attacks have evolved. New threat types such as push-bombing, social engineering, and spear phishing are forcing organizations to do more than rely on MFA alone. To stay protected, you need to increase the effectiveness of your MFA with powerful next-generation capabilities such as passwordless, risk-based authentication, adaptive access policies, and identity visibility tools. But with so many MFA solutions available, how do you identify the one that best suits your organization?

5 Key Criteria to Evaluate

In our MFA Buyer’s Evaluation Guide, we go in depth on the five key criteria you should look for in any security solution.

  • Security Impact — The most critical security aspects of an authentication solution are how effective it is against threats related to credential theft and account takeover as well as its underlying security and reliability. If the primary goal is to reduce the risk of a breach and a solution is easily bypassed or doesn’t provide comprehensive protection that keeps up with and responds to new and changing threats, it’s not worth implementing.

  • Strategic Business Initiatives — Consider how MFA integrates with your business initiatives, both now and in the future. This includes legacy systems, bring your own device (BYOD), remote work, and the adoption of cloud applications. Another business driver to consider is compliance regulation requirements, which can vary by industry and location.

  • Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) — TCO is everyone’s favorite topic. It’s another way of saying, “What’s this really going to cost me?” Total cost of ownership includes all direct and indirect costs of owning a product. For an MFA solution, that can include hidden costs such as upfront capital, licensing, support, maintenance, and other unforeseen expenses over time, like professional services and ongoing operation and administration costs.

  • Time to Value — Another favorite topic is time to value, something we like to call time to security. Time to value refers to the time spent implementing, deploying, and adapting to the solution. Determine how long it takes before your company can start realizing the security benefits of an MFA solution. This is particularly important if you ever experience a breach or security incident.

  • Required Resources — You’ll want to consider the time, the personnel, and any other resources required to integrate your applications, manage users and devices, and maintain your solution. Your MFA provider should be able to tell you what they cover and where you need to fill in the gaps.

With the increase in attacks targeting your users’ identities, you also want to look for a solution that delivers identity security. According to a report from Cisco Talos, Cisco’s threat intelligence and research organization, in the last year, 80% of breaches leverage identity as a key component. So, when you’re evaluating MFA solutions, make sure you look into their identity security capabilities so you can protect against threats designed to steal your users’ identities and then use those credentials to launch attacks that can lead to a breach.

Duo Can Help

Now that we’ve identified the criteria to evaluate in an MFA solution, let’s take a look at how Duo can help you achieve modern protection without getting in the way of your users:

  1. Security Impact

    Duo protects access to all your apps including enterprise cloud apps, on-premises and web apps, and custom apps that use SAML or OIDC. Pretty much any app you can think of. Duo passwordless reduces your reliance on passwords, improves user experience, reduces IT overhead, and strengthens security posture.

    Duo Risk-Based Authentication takes baseline authentication behavior and evaluates contextual signals to dynamically adjust authentication requirements in real time. With Duo and Cisco Identity Intelligence, you can detect identity-based risks from all your identity sources—identity providers, HR and ticketing systems, and more—to take the right remediation action. You can also identify gaps in MFA coverage, dormant accounts, and privilege creep to reduce the risk of a breach

  2. Strategic Business Initiatives

    Achieving the initiatives that drive your organization forward is critical to its success. Moving to the cloud? Duo is built on a scalable, cloud-based platform that requires minimal setup and removes costly maintenance. Need to lock down application access to only managed devices or allow access from personal devices with a bring your own device (BYOD) policy? Duo Trusted Endpoints lets you do both.

    With Duo Passport, you can provide a secure and seamless sign-in experience that increases workforce productivity and lowers the administrative burden for IT. Duo can also help meet compliance requirements and regulatory framework guidelines such as PCI, HIPAA, GDPR, NIST, and others.

  3. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

    Duo makes it easy to understand the full cost of acquiring an MFA solution. We offer a simple subscription model priced on a per user basis, billed annually, with no extra fees for new devices or applications. With Duo MFA, you get the most value with no hidden costs such as upfront capital, licensing, support, maintenance, operating or other unforeseen expenses over time.

  4. Time to Value

    Duo lets you try before you buy, helping you set up pilot programs before deploying Duo to your entire organization and realizing the value of your investment.

    Quickly add new users through bulk enrollment, self-enrollment, or a directory sync. The Duo Mobile app allows users to easily download the app onto their devices, while a self-service portal also lets them manage their own accounts and devices, reducing help desk tickets and support time.

  5. Required Resources

    Duo integrates with all of your apps with no need for extra hardware, software, or agents. Extensive documentation, APIs, and SDKs make implementation seamless. Because Duo is a cloud-hosted solution, updates are rolled out frequently and automatically to patch for the latest vulnerabilities, so you don’t need to hire a dedicated team to manage the solution.

Looking Deeper

Regardless of where you are today with your MFA, it’s important to evaluate any solution in the context of these criteria. If you’d like to dig deeper into each criteria, we’ve got more information in the MFA Buyer’s Evaluation Guide.

You can also watch our on-demand webinar, Get Defensive With Your MFA, as well. Remember, times change, and threats evolve, so your MFA solution should as well.