Platform Security (The Great Balancing Act)

THE PLATFORM: THE GREAT BALANCING ACT

It is becoming increasingly important to use specialized security solutions. In this masterclass we will update you with Jasmit Sagoo from Auth0. He is a specialist in the field of identity and access solutions.

How do you secure an online platform and keep it easily accessible? How do you apply the available security standards to your environment? How can you quickly implement an I&A solution and create a scalable solution at the same time? In the Platform podcast series The Great Balancing Act, Jas Sagoo, Head of Solutions Engineering, international @ Auth0 and Mike Veldhuis, Partner @Nalta, will dig into these topics. Listen to learn and for a bit of fun too!

Want to know even more and ask your own questions? Then register for the (English) online Masterclass, with by Mike & Jas

Episode Notes

The Platform Website: https://www.nalta.com/theplatform
The Platform on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/naltatube
All Nalta Blogs: https://www.nalta.com/blog

Host, Mike Veldhuis
https://www.nalta.com/mikeveldhuis

Guest, Jasmit Sagoo
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasmit-sagoo/

Transcript

Mike Veldhuis: 0:00

You are listening to the Platform . A podcast to learn about our digital world. I am Mike Veldhuis partner at nalta.com

Jas Sagoo: 0:12

Hello, I'm Jas Sagoo.And I'm head of solution engineering and professional services at Auth0 International.

Mike Veldhuis: 0:19

Welcome to a new episode of the Platform Podcast and YouTube channel, and a new series of four episodes. And we're gonna talk about security,the great balancing act. With the new guest, and I'm gonna introduce to you Jas. Welcome Jas.

Jas Sagoo: 0:39

Hi, Mike. Thank you.It's a pleasure to be on your platform and podcast.

Mike Veldhuis: 0:44

Yeah, it's super exciting. We've been working on this for the last couple of weeks, with your team as well at Auth0. And it's a great pleasure that you're taking the time and talk to us and talk with us about the importance of security in our landscape of digitization and applications and everything that we working on At Nalta. And you are working on with your team here in Europe in the US.So for our audience who is Jas.

Jas Sagoo: 1:24

So for the audience.Hello, everyone. My name is Jas Sagoo, I'm head of solution engineering and solution architecture at Auth0.

Mike Veldhuis: 1:35

Already the ninth episode, and it has been so much fun. I talked with Ed Mycoskie of Boomi and we talked about data. I had Michael Morton,Michael J. Morton, I must say,as my guest, and we talked about building an intelligent business. And of course, we talk about people, and we talk about data and systems and processes,but we have not spoken about securing it. Yet, which is so absolutely important to talk about. And that's what we're gonna do, we're going to talk about, more specifically, that part of security that is like,when you log into a system, you know, it's it's safe. And that's, that's your business,right?

Jas Sagoo: 2:30

Correct. Absolutely.Right. And, you know, when I,when I look at, you know,logging into a system, you know,we, at Auth0 are going to be considered probably, as you know, the front door or the front gate, to that system or to that service. So it's very important to make sure that you're also securing organizations are thinking about how these to secure, you know,their systems, their applications and their services.So Mike you are completely right, it's the business that we're in. And we're passionate about helping our customers, our partners, and the audience to learn about how they can secure their systems.

Mike Veldhuis: 3:08

And it's a broad topic. And I think for a lot of listeners, we're actually users of systems and platforms is just like, Okay, I have my username,I have my password. Sometimes I get a token, I have to use an authenticator, or I get an SMS message. And now it's really safe, but they have no clue what is actually happening behind the scenes. And that's what we try,we're gonna try to explain a little bit to our audience, why this is so important, and what is actually happening. And in four episodes, and one master class, I should not forget it,we already have two master classes with Ed, and Michael.And we're gonna do the same on the seventh of October, where we actually gonna delve a little bit deeper in the topics we addressed in the podcast series.And there will be the opportunity to ask questions.But before we get to that, Jas,why is security such an important topic?

Jas Sagoo: 4:21

So Mike, it's it's a it's a very broad, important topic. And, you know, I think security is there really to protect resources to protect the individual, but it's also there to protect the experience that an individual has when they're accessing the service in today's world, and especially with the context of in the business of identity. I think what you have to look at is we are very quickly shifting to a world where organizations are digitizing services and they want to monetize these services.And there's a price, there's a cost associated to access certain services, because they provide benefits they provide value. And therefore, it is important to understand who can access the services? And do they are they privileged to access services. And, you know,within those services are they are the areas of further authorization, or for the privileges that they can have based on the fee the've paid based on the I would say, their level of membership, or one can put it that way. And so organizations need to be protected so that they have the right individuals or customers have access to those services.But also remember, when one is accessing services, they're divulging personal information,private information, and that information needs to be protected as well. So we are rapidly moving into a world where you know, all this information is becoming digital access to this information is easily available. So therefore,in order to create trust, and this is a big word, trust,security is important.

Mike Veldhuis: 6:06

We could have picked a lot of solutions around this security space. I actually was triggered because kind of sad Mr. McAfee died a couple of weeks ago. And he really kickstarted the space of security products. Which is crazy, I don't know it's a 30years ago, something like that.It's basically very new, like, a lot that's happening in the IT industry. But he was one of the first that thought, okay, there is a business model behind it.And there is a place for products that protect people from other people that want to do harm. And actually, when I was younger and started using the internet, I could not imagine that we would be so dependent on the internet, and would be so dependent on the usage of the internet, that it would be harmful. If it was not accessible, or you were not able to get to the internet. And that's crazy, that happend so fast. And we could pick a lot of topics like the virus scanner,or systems that protect you from hackers, firewalls. But we specifically wanted to talk about the area where Auth0 is active, and where you as a professional are active. And this is in the identity management space. When did Auth0originated, like McAfee maybe 30years ago, when did it start for your company?

Jas Sagoo: 8:05

So before I kind of answer that question itself, I think you're completely right about, you know, the the breadth of security, you know, in different areas and their different disciplines around security. And, you know, what I think one thing we have to be cognizant of is that threats are evolving all the time. And they are evolving from, you know,different different areas. And therefore, a level, it's important to understand that if you have security in one area of your business, perimeter security, or, you know, you mentioned McAfee, you know, AV security and so on. There are a lot of other areas that you have to consider these days. Look,for example, you know, recently around the ransomware, right,how, data can be encrypted, and you can be held ransom to bribe,money's to make sure that you're you get keys to decrypt your data. So again, you know, five years ago, these threats didn't exist. And now or probably existed, or probably we weren't,we didn't hear about them. But now they're all out in the open.So I think the point I'm making is that if you look at the world of security threats are increasing rapidly. We're getting smarter and collaborate.And so therefore, organizations must, I guess, be cognizant of ensuring that they need to be on on the I would say is on the front foot to make sure that that they are not missing a trick. And a lot of this, a lot of you know a lot of what a good word say is understanding of the risks understanding of new threats comes through collaboration. And if we were all to talk about our mistakes that would help you know us as a community, to make sure that we're learning from one another and I am one person when I talk in your presentations, I collaborate with my peers. We normally talk about the topics around the mistakes that we make. And that helps us and Mike peers and other colleagues to make sure that we're all learning from each other. Now,to get to give you a view around Auth0, you know, Auth0 was started about 7 / 8 years ago by Eugenio.

Mike Veldhuis: 10:22

very young company,

Jas Sagoo: 10:23

very young company.Yes. And what they realized was that, you know, in order to provide security in the perspective, identity and access management or access to services and applications. There were loads of solutions around the market. But none were flexible enough to allow developers to extend around their applications. You always ended up in a situation where you had to compromise based on a vendor's features and functionality. And wwhat are, I guess founders realized is that as we live in a world of cloud, and what cloud is doing is giving access developers access to services, and what an access to services means that developers are able to quickly build applications. And this kind of mindset took momentum about let's go and build applications. Let's go and create our own applications. And then suddenly, at one point, you reach a what I would say is a barrier, oh, we can't build application the way we wanted to, because now we have to integrate with an identity solution that's too rigid. So how can we you know, provide the best experience and then the best security and the best privacy to our customers and audiences through an identity and access management solution.And that's how Matias came up with this developer led motion around identity and access management, and allows developers, to be flexible and build an application and login for an application but without having to be experts in the identity piece. Because that was taken care of in the background by the platform.

Mike Veldhuis: 12:19

Yeah, and I think... Thank you, because that makes it very clear what we're talking about in those four episodes in the three upcoming episodes. And this will be very interesting for developers. But it will also be very interesting to general IT people that are moving more and more in the application stack, you know,and, owners of companies and business decision makers, that really have to make sure that there is budget for those solutions, which are becoming more and more important, because what we're talking about is really the front door to your digital world of your company,the platform that you are building for your company. It's not a backdoor, it's not something that is protected by a firewall or protected by data encryption, it's really the front door, the lock to it, and to make sure that only the right people get in, right?

Jas Sagoo: 13:27

Absolutely right. And you know, what your front door has to be, has to be strong, has to be reliable has to be rigid.But also at the same time, allow the right people in with ease.You know, you don't want to give somebody 10 sets of keys to open the door. You want to give them give one set of keys and to make and then they need to have the confidence that only they have that key to exit that door. And then to enter to enter the world of the services they want. So so there isn't there is a balancing act, you have to play that, you know, because imagine you have to walk into your front door and every day you have to take a whole bunch of keys with 10 keys on that meant 10 locks, you probably want to move houses because you say can't do this every day.Yeah, and that's the balancing act between privacy, security and convenience. And in the upcoming three episodes, we're going to talk about the Buy versus Build strategy. So can you build this yourself, or it's better to use the knowledge of a vendor. We're going to talk about the future of identity security. And we're going to tie it all together in the final episode, which is called the Great balancing act. You already mentioned it Jas. Thank you for being here Jas and thank you for listening Next week we're going to talk about Buy versus Build.Thank you.Thanks, Mike. Great to be here.