How to Do Identity Right When Developing Digital Services

Delivering digital services proficiently in today's digital age hinges on multiple factors including business model, timely and cost-effective delivery, robust digital experience, and resilience to cyber threats. Key among these is the role of identity, particularly during onboarding and recurring authentication and authorization, which are critical for both user experience and security. However, many organizations face challenges integrating authentication and authorization within their IAM (Identity and Access Management) and CIAM (Consumer IAM) systems, especially in environments requiring high-level assurance and security such as banking. Authlete offers a solution to simplify the implementation of OAuth and OpenID Connect protocols, thereby offloading the complexity of protocol and token handling. By integrating Authlete’s services, organizations can achieve improved speed, reliability, and security in delivering digital services, overcoming IT skill gaps, and avoiding the intricacies of developing complex solutions internally.

• Successful digital services depend on seamless integration of identity and security practices.
• The rapid delivery of digital services is hampered by an IT skill gap.
• OAuth and OpenID Connect are industry-standard protocols but entail a complex array of specifications.
• Authlete offers OAuth/OIDC servers and backend services for handling complex protocol operations.
• IAM solutions typically target workforce management, not scalable customer-oriented services.
• CIAM solutions, while scalable, often lack the deep integration needed for specific industry applications like finance.
• External identity providers such as GAIN use standards like OAuth and OIDC for trusted identity verification.
• Authlete service is available as a cloud service or on-premises implementation.
• Authlete leverages a central console to manage services and a developer console for API client development.
• Digital identity solutions ensure security and enhance digital experiences across all services.

• "Authentication and authorization are a major element of both digital experience and security."
• "Organizations must ensure that business, development, operations, identity, and security teams collaborate in delivering digital services on time, with a leading-edge digital experience, and secure."
• "In times of major skill gaps in IT, utilizing services is essential for providing the time-to-value required in delivering digital services, and the efficiency in operations."
• "Many organizations underestimate the complexity of standard protocols and their implementation. Services can help in delivering these capabilities on time, and securely."
• "Modern solutions must be open to external identities. OAuth and OpenID Connect support in integration."
• "Authlete delivers a service that simplifies that complexity by off-loading OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect protocol operations as well as the related lifecycle management of access tokens to their dedicated service."
• "Authentication and authorization are a core element of the digital experience. Authentication and authorization are also a core element of security. Thus, organizations must think about how to do this well."
• "The entire complexity of the OAuth/OIDC protocols is offloaded to the Authlete backend services. Developers can focus on gathering parameters that then are provided to the Authlete service in the backend, which then cares for all the details."
• "The challenge is to make a modern, API-driven and service-based approach work in these scenarios."
• "Success in the digital age depends on a strong, positive digital experience."