The direct participation of the customers in key business processes is enabled by enterprise and part of the business infrastructure of organizations in many industries- including financial services, healthcare, telecommunications and government. But major security issues are associated with this growing usage which include concerns about privacy, secure access management, fraud and the increased risk and cost of security breaches that are further magnified as the external user population grows. Portals normally contain important information and are deployed to user populations where authenticating user and controlling access to resources are critical. The strategic significance of these portals raises the need for organizations to apply security solutions that meet internal policies, address regulatory requirements and provide the right level of security to protect customer identities. Portals, when not properly secured, mostly invite unauthorized access to company networks by curiosity seekers or even worse, hackers and fraudsters.

Following are some tips that can be useful in securing the portals and protecting both the network and the customers:

Strengthening the portal:

This can be done by:

• Ensuring that all user- whether employees, partners, suppliers or customers- have secured and convenient access, but only to the data and resources they need to perform their necessary tasks.
• Centralizing the access policy administration- this will help in managing and enforcing the portal access, control policies centrally and cost-effectively based on end- user roles, risk level or dynamic attributes.
• Having proper knowledge about the customers as secure portals begin at the initial customer enrolment phase.

Simplifying Customer security:

Customers always want a convenient network access. At the same time, they also demand for a high level of security protection for the network and their sensitive data to avoid the recent trend of online fraud and unauthorized access to enterprise networks and confidential information. Thus the organizations require a solution that delivers a strong portal authentication without hampering the customer’s experience or privacy. This may be done by:

• Increasing customer usage by enabling access to multiple applications within the network with single sign-on (sso) – this will eliminate the frustration of tracking multiple passwords.
• Risk-based authentication delivering both strong security and convenience to customers- this allows for a convenient user experience by minimizing the number of unnecessary challenges and lockouts.

Inspiring customer confidence:

The organizations that ensure the customers that their personal and business information is safe are always a step ahead of their competitors. As they provide secure online access, the number of transactions that customers conducting online will raise and a result their brand loyalty will also get enhanced. The entire method of the security measure and a complete and detailed clarification regarding the security solution should be provided to the customer so that the customer is clear about the safety of his portal. Moreover, by deploying a security solution that provides customers with site-to-user authentication, they are assured that they have gained access to a legitimate site, and not a fraudulent site designed to capture their credentials for the purpose of committing fraud at some future date. As a result a sense of security will boost customer confidence without compromising the user experience a significant increase in portal adoption and customer satisfaction.