PortSys Total Access Control

Organizations face increasingly complex access management demands as cybercrime and fraud grow in scale and sophistication. Access management typically centers on authentication, authorization, federation, and SSO, but sits within broader IAM capabilities such as provisioning, lifecycle governance, entitlements, deprovisioning, and auditing. Legacy client-server and older web-era approaches relied on static users/groups/roles and coarse-grained ACL permissions, while modern environments increasingly require fine-grained, attribute- and policy-based controls. A persistent challenge is integrating modern IAM/IDaaS with non-standard, client-server legacy applications, especially when external users (contractors, partners, customers, consumers) must access resources from unmanaged devices whose posture and reputation should influence decisions.

Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) elevates access management by requiring every request to be authenticated and authorized with least privilege, considering user attributes, authentication context, device and environment signals, and resource attributes. Common ZTA-enabling requirements include broad MFA support, policy-based enforcement actions (permit/step-up/deny/lock), federation standards (OAuth2/OIDC/JWT/SAML), integration with SIEM/SOAR/UBA, dashboards/reporting, and delegated administration.

PortSys (founded 2008) delivers Zero Trust Access Controls via PortSys Total Access Control (TAC), a hardened Windows-based virtual appliance using a reverse-proxy architecture to front-end protected resources, including legacy apps. TAC deploys on-prem, cloud, or hybrid (AWS/Azure/VMware/Hyper-V), scales to 64 nodes per array, and supports HA clusters without extra HA charges; licensing is based on annual user subscription blocks. TAC is not an IdP but interoperates via LDAP/SAML/OAuth/OIDC with AD/ADFS/Azure AD and providers like Okta, Ping, and OneLogin, and provides SSO to popular SaaS. TAC also addresses remote access pressure amplified by WFH by brokering RADIUS-based authentication and, in some deployments, reducing or replacing VPNs with more granular reverse-proxy access. It adds portal-based UX, extensive MFA (including SafeLogin picture recognition), request inspection and basic web attack filtering, endpoint and geofencing risk checks, FIPS 140-2 crypto, and syslog-based SIEM integration, while lacking an auth API/mobile SDK and mature SOAR connectors; TLS 1.3 is in testing.

• Access management solutions generally include authentication, authorization, identity federation, and Single Sign-On (SSO).
• Identity federation arrived in the early 2000s to enable SSO between web domains.
• PortSys was founded in 2008 and is based in Marlborough, Massachusetts.
• PortSys Total Access Control (TAC) is delivered as hardened, Windows-based virtual appliances.
• Up to 64 TAC virtual appliance nodes can be configured as a single array.
• TAC licensing is based on annual user subscription blocks rather than deployed appliances, logins, or utilization.
• TAC is not an Identity Provider and instead acts as an access management gateway relying on other IAM/IDaaS systems.
• TAC supports LDAP, SAML, OAuth, and OIDC for interoperability.
• TAC provides 17 portal themes that can be white-labeled and further customized with CSS.
• TAC uses FIPS 140-2 certified cryptographic components.

• “Never trust, always verify”
• “Access management has become a front-and-center issue for executives, managers, and users alike.”
• “TAC is not an IdP, rather it acts as access management gateway that can rely upon traditional IAM and IDaaS solutions.”
• “SafeLogin strong authenticator, a picture-recognition based method that obviates the need for passwords.”
• “The reverse-proxy deployment model enables TAC to serve as a secure gateway front-ending legacy applications that do not interoperate with contemporary security and identity tools.”
• “VPNs without proper network segmentation and/or without tight integration with existing IAM infrastructure can expose organizations to increased risk of compromises and data breaches.”
• “Identity Fabrics permit organizations to add and upgrade segments of their infrastructure or contract with service providers to meet business objectives in a more agile manner.”
• “Adherence to Zero Trust means separating these resources into more easily defensible locations and enforcing strong authentication and access control.”
• “Customers construct policies to evaluate user, requesting device, target resource, and environmental attributes using Boolean logic.”
• “Small-to-medium sized businesses as well as enterprises and government agencies with limited IT support… may find PortSys TAC to be a compelling access management product.”