Synacor Cloud ID

Consumer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) has evolved from enterprise IAM into a distinct market focused on organizations serving consumers and citizens. It supports provisioning, authentication, authorization, and the collection and storage of consumer identity data that often comes from multiple, unauthoritative sources. This data is used not only for access decisions but also for analytics that support marketing and compliance initiatives such as AML. CIAM platforms must scale to millions of identities and potentially billions of daily transactions, with SaaS delivery increasingly becoming the default. Common CIAM capabilities include social login, multi-factor authentication (MFA), risk-adaptive authentication, account recovery, fraud/compromised credential intelligence, identity analytics, marketing-oriented business intelligence, privacy and consent management driven by GDPR/PIPEDA/CCPA, and association of IoT device identities with human identities. CIAM also creates a strategic bridge between IT and Marketing because identity data can directly impact revenue and loyalty.

Synacor, founded in 1998 in Buffalo, provides Cloud ID, a multi-tenant SaaS CIAM platform delivered across its own data centers plus AWS and Oracle Cloud in North America. Cloud ID emphasizes consumer identity integration with IoT devices such as set-top boxes, smart TVs, and home security systems, serving broadband, media/entertainment, consumer electronics, fitness, and home automation markets. It supports white-labeling, bulk provisioning (LDAP/APIs), self-registration with social providers, progressive profiling, MFA options (biometrics and OTPs), and federation (JWT, OAuth, OpenID Connect, SAML). Fraud controls include integration with NuData and Google reCAPTCHA, brute-force prevention, lockout policies, and contextual authorization controls. Cloud ID provides consent and privacy tooling, opaque IDs to reduce customer handling of personal data, and configurable family management for parental controls and differentiated views. Device association supports OAuth2 Device Flow and complex one-to-many/many-to-many household relationships, enabling identity brokering across ecosystems. Challenges include no FIDO support, no direct SIEM integration, and limited data-center geography, while containerization is on the near-term roadmap.

• CIAM solutions are designed to manage millions of identities and potentially billions of logins and transactions per day.
• SaaS delivery of CIAM services is trending upward and is likely to remain the default choice for most organizations.
• Synacor was founded in 1998 in Buffalo, New York.
• Synacor Cloud ID is hosted as fully multi-tenant SaaS in a multi-cloud architecture using Synacor data centers, AWS, and Oracle Cloud across North America.
• Cloud ID licensing is based on monthly active users or registered users.
• Cloud ID supports Android and iOS biometrics, email/phone/SMS OTP, Authy, and Google Authenticator for MFA.
• Cloud ID integrates with NuData and Google reCAPTCHA to reduce fraud risks, with additional sources configurable via APIs.
• Cloud ID supports OAuth2 Device Flow for device-to-human identity association.
• Synacor Cloud ID is SSAE 18 SOC Type 1 and Type 2 attested.
• Synacor supports more than 150 million users across many major brands.

• “CIAM is an outgrowth from enterprise Identity and Access Management (IAM) that has become a substantial market of its own.”
• “Unlike workforce IAM systems though, information about these consumers often arrives from many unauthoritative sources.”
• “SaaS delivery of CIAM services is trending upwards and will likely remain the default choice for most organizations.”
• “Synacor adheres to the progressive profiling concept, whereby customers can obtain pertinent information from consumers as needed rather than trying to get complete profile information at registration time.”
• “User self-service is a must-have for scalability and efficiency in these high-demand scenarios.”
• “Consent management is a paramount concern for many organizations.”
• “Cloud ID creates and maintains opaque IDs to shield customers from obtaining and storing personal data of their consumers.”
• “IoT device identity management is more complex than simple one-to-one pairings.”
• “Corporate customers are keen to detect and eliminate over-sharing, which occurs when persons outside a subscriber family unit use authenticated credentials to gain access to content without properly obtaining a subscription.”
• “IT departments should welcome CIAM initiatives, as they provide an opportunity for IT, usually considered a ‘cost center’, to closely team with Marketing, a revenue producing center.”