Rashid Maknin, Senior Product Manager
5 min read
The global pandemic has seen organizations press fast forward on their digital transformation plans, and with it comes the widespread adoption of cloud technology.
Moving core applications to the cloud can help keep businesses moving, and it can also help company IT leads keep up with the challenges that come along with supporting a remote workforce that uses multiple devices and connections.
Along with it comes the security mechanisms in place to keep users and company data protected.
With SAFEQ Cloud, we offer the broadest range of authentication for a print solution, including single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), on-premises identity management, and cloud print authentication management. Among our list of cloud authentication integrations, you find Ping Identity.
Ping Identity is a US-established software company founded by Andre Durand and Bryan Field-Elliot. It is a top provider of federated cloud identity management and self-hosted identity access management (IAM) solutions to replace passwords and similar outdated identity verification mechanisms.
While there is a lot to consider with any cloud management strategy, privacy and data protection is a significant concern for most organizations. This article will explain how Y Soft partners with Ping Identity to bring you safe and secure cloud printing.
What is Ping Identity Authentication?
What's the background, and what is Ping Identity used for? Ping Identity is an identity authentication company. Among its products is PingID, a multi-factor authentication platform and security integration that helps software users avoid identity fraud when attempting to access confidential data.
It’s one of multiple solutions that helps determine whether someone or something is who or what they claim.
The ways users prove their identities are often dependent on the sensitivity of the data and digital resources involved. Either way, chances are that confidential data transits through your organization that shouldn’t fall into the wrong hands. PingID authentication helps mitigate that risk.
Ping Identity is an authentication authority that swiftly rolls out centralized authentication services that cover digital assets from on-premises to cloud and SaaS software. PingID is a SaaS service and mobile app for Apple iOS or Google Android devices. These components work together to provide a secure means of authentication for employees and partners.
The benefits of using PingID include:
- Increased employee productivity
- Reduced helpdesk tickets
- Minimized risk and friction
- Reliable login experiences
- Intelligently increased security
- Fraud prevention
- Protected access from anywhere
Cloud Print + Ping ID = Protected Information
Migrating printing jobs to the cloud and removing the reliance on legacy on-premises infrastructure comes with many benefits. From reduced IT costs to more flexibility, mobility, agility, and scalability—the list goes on. And while all of these benefits are certainly notable, it does beg the question—how can this be safe?
Questions around the security of a cloud print service often have to do with identity and access management. With business applications residing both on-premises and in the cloud and the proliferation in endpoints as a result of the shift to a remote working model, the process of managing identities has become more complex.
At Y Soft, it’s our goal to offer customers integration with identity solutions that securely streamline administration across all their cloud-based applications and ensure end-users enjoy easy, yet secure, access to print.
With cloud-based identity providers (IdP) like Ping Identity, you can securely store and manage passwords and grant access to cloud resources. PingID multi-factor authentication (MFA) enables you to maintain a secure hold-and-release queue, where documents aren’t printed until the user has authenticated themselves.
Outdated Methods Leave Room for Vulnerabilities
As mentioned earlier, privacy and security should be top of mind for any company looking to eliminate its reliance on a print server and make the switch to cloud printing.
If your company is still using traditional non-cloud-based printing solutions, you may be vulnerable to certain threats like the Microsoft PrintNightmare vulnerability or the Log4j exploit. And with popular cloud-based printing services like Google Cloud Print discontinued as of 2021, it has become both more difficult and more vital to find the perfect cloud printing service with a broad range of print authentication options.
Enjoy Secure Printing with A Cloud Print Service
At Y Soft, we believe that a trustworthy cloud print platform should support cloud-based Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) and identity and access management (IAM) solutions. This enables organizations to manage user identities across multi-domain, multi tenant SaaS environments seamlessly.
We’re constantly evolving our platform to enable customers to switch to a cloud-first print environment without having to make radical compromises. This is especially important when allowing existing secure single sign-on, log-in, and authentication policies to be connected and extended to SAFEQ Cloud.
That’s why we’ve ensured it’s easy to connect print to an existing authentication system (or systems), keep all users and data secure and up-to-date, and ensure that IT can control who can access what based on the roles they perform. After all, securing one set of credentials is much easier than managing many. This is where PingID comes into play.
Want to know more about secure printing? Delve into the topic here:
📖 Read on → 10 Ways to Maintain a Secure Cloud Print Environment
Why use PingID for Cloud Printing?
SAFEQ Cloud supports all leading IAM providers in this space, including Microsoft Azure, Active Directory, Okta, Auth0, Google, and LDAP. In direct response to customer demand, we have also integrated with leading cloud-first authentication authority Ping Identity.
The Ping Intelligent Identity platform provides a comprehensive suite of identity services that work in any cloud, hybrid, or on-premises environment. These include multi-factor authentication and single sign-on, data governance, and intelligent API cybersecurity.
As a proud Ping Identity Silver Partner, YSoft SAFEQ Cloud customers can rely on expert-grade cloud printing authentication to access PingID’s centralized identity management.
We understand that securing and controlling access to resources is a top priority for companies in any industry. That’s why our focus is firmly on ensuring SAFEQ Cloud meets our customers’ security requirements for user identity and cloud printing authentication across all domains and devices.
FAQs on Ping Identity
Q1) What does Ping Identity do?
As a whole, Ping Identity delivers secure identity management to any industry. The company helps IT teams protect their users and every digital interaction they have while making experiences frictionless. They offer a variety of data protection mechanisms, including digital credentials, single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), dynamic authorization, and threat prevention.
Q2) ARE Ping Identity Solutions Flexible?
Ping Identity sells numerous identity platforms that help ensure confidential data doesn’t get into the wrong hands. One such solution is a flexible IAM deployment option that integrates with any environment, including on-prem, cloud-native, cloud-based, and hybrid. The solution in question is called the PingOne Cloud platform.
With flexible deployment from Ping Identity, users can take their time when making important decisions about the future of their IT infrastructure. For example, you can weigh your options about a cloud migration without feeling pressured to make the switch before you’re ready.
Final Points
PingID provides several authentication methods, including the desktop app, the mobile application for Apple and Android devices, and PingID APIs. PingID authentication can be integrated in minutes and is versatile enough to secure all your applications and services regardless of where they’re hosted.
Print has long been a pain for IT, but it doesn’t have to be.
📖 Read on → Give Your IT Team a Break: 7 Benefits of Cloud Printing
Ping ID can help you stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly evolving digital world. Whether you have concerns about sensitive data leaving the network, desire to align print with wider IT policies such as authentication, authorization, and role-based access control, or require cloud-based print to work in a zero-trust environment, we make it easy to migrate print to the cloud in a way that suits your business.
Your print environment should not have to be defenseless against cyberattacks and vulnerabilities. Print authentication ensures your users and data are securely protected, even in a multi-dimensional threat landscape.
Are you ready for the cloud and its host of benefits and security capabilities? Take our self-guided cloud-readiness quiz to find out if your company has what it takes to move your print to the cloud. Good luck!
