Fischer Identity as a Service (IaaS) is an identity management solution from Fischer International.
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WatchGuard AuthPoint
Score 9.0 out of 10
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AuthPoint Total Identity Security provides businesses with a solution to protect user accounts and credentials. With
multi-factor authentication and dark web credential
monitoring, AuthPoint mitigates the risks associated with workforce credential
attacks. AuthPoint adds an extra layer of security by monitoring for
potential credential exposure in the dark web for both personal and corporate
accounts.
Fischer is well suited for the use case scenarios where an institution has not previously used any identity management and needs to quickly provide services to meet regulatory or other deadlines. It also works well when you can implement in smaller batches of user accounts and grow over time. We have found it less appropriate for cases where we have needed to set up on-off temporary or special access. Fischer has worked with us on out-of-band provisioning but we had to pay for extra Fischer professional services to make that work.
Works great as a 2FA token, for endpoint control, for computer and server updates, for scheduling updates, and for patching security features when exploits become known. Remote connection is very reliable and doesn't drop in and out as many programs do. It may not be as appropriate if you are looking for a plug-and-play control, as it requires more learning and setup to get it set up correctly.
Reducing the frequency (twice a month) of scheduled outages. But I believe they are making progress toward developing a more robust cloud infrastructure that will eliminate the need for such frequent downtimes.
There are some less than intuitive administration tools, which could be improved. Fisher is always willing to help us when we don't understand the proper way to configure using the tools.
I would like a streamlined way to move changes from our test environment into our production (live) environment instead of having to duplicate the effort.
Email support is SLOW unless I want to allow a stranger to access my production firewall. That is never allowed here, so our hands are tied in terms of being able to get support in less than 48 hours.
Again, support takes far too long because you refuse to employ any staff that works in US time zones during normal business hours.
There has to be another option besides: 1) you take full control of my systems or 2) I wait on SLOW email support that isn't that great.
Today to ensure our ISO 27001 certification it is important that we maintain this solution. Today it is part of the way any employee within the organization works, we no longer have any other way of working and it is the simplest way to ensure that access to the workstation is done with MFA.
After initial setup, it practically runs itself. Onboarding new users is fast and easy as it should be. The AuthPoint mobile app is small and simple to use. The only reason I do not give it a 10 is that I frequently get complaints from end users that the AuthPoint app is "constantly downloading". In fact, it's not downloading anything and that what the users are seeing in the app is a timer for the 6-digit code that changes every minute.
WatchGuard support is always quick and reliable. They have urgency levels that you are able to select when creating your support ticket, and they respond in accordance to the severity that you have set. I have never had an issue with getting someone on the phone in the same business day, even for very low priority issues.
It was an Onsite demo at the ditributor with the benefits of Watchguard Authpoint. Was very nice to see the abilities of the product. This Demo was a few years back, since then Authpoint changed allot. It is very nice for partners that you can get this demo without any aditional cost.
We use the online training for all our employees. There are both sales and technical trainings available and there even is a technical certification. You can use this for the Watchguard Partner Program which can give you aditional benefits. Every now and then you have a webinar that discusses multiple Watchguard products.
the first time it takes more effort. It is helpful to already understand how each authentication type works. Then it's much easier to understand the MFA solution that you implement. It is useful to check the release notes from time to time and update the key parts of the Watchguard Authpoint. Authpoint Gateway, Logon App, RDWeb... Also, it's useful to set up notifications when something goes wrong or sometimes check the statistics of how many requests are being approved/denied, etc.
It does deliver as advertised, provided you do your homework and understand the expected outcome before going live. Poor planning can turn the project into a nightmare. It can save the company a good deal of man hours and money by bringing about identity management automation, a self-service portal, and customizable email notifications for all of the identity owners and other stakeholders. For example, you can inform your HR team upon successful account creation and disablement. You can proactively reach out to users informing them about their account extirpation status, etc.
I would slot Authpoint (as a product) as better than ESET but not Duo. ESET has the same limitations as Watchguard in the OTP support. It also is an on-prem installed console rather than a cloud, which increases cost and maintenance requirements. The duo now supports standard OTP for admin accounts, so it can be managed by a team. Duo support however leaves a lot to be desired and gives Watchguard the edge
Fischer has had a positive impact by providing self-serve identity and password management tools that our constituents can use at their convience, not tied to our operational hours.
Fisher Identity as a Service has been a significant cost, but it is anticipated that it saves our students significant time and effort that they can better dedicate to their academic pursuits.
Negative initial reaction--as this was a new way of doing things, there was a period of confusion among our college constituent that required additional communication and instruction
We currently have 300 users on Authpoint, and most of them use insecure passwords. Authpoint gives us peace of mind that we don't have to police individual employee passwords.
In line with the comment above, with so many people in our organization using insecure passwords, I'm sure that Authpoint has already saved us from many potential security breaches.
Security breaches can cost a lot of money. Preventing them saves the company money and helps to achieve our bottom line.
