IBM has made its second security-related acquisition in two weeks with the purchase of the cloud-based identity and access management division of Lighthouse Computer Services.
The division, called Lighhouse Security Group, sells the Lighthouse Gateway for access management to cloud and hybrid environments. It will be come one of IBM’s managed security services.
IBM said Monday that the solution will significantly reduce the cost of digital identity management and speeds the deployment for any type of IT environment—on premise, in the cloud or a hybrid.
On July 31 IBM announced it has bought a similar company, Italian-based CrossIdeas, which sells security software that governs user access to applications and data by using analytics to help risk analysis.
For example, IBM said in a release, if a stock trader working in a financial institution is promoted and given access to approve trades in a new system while retaining access to enter trades in the previous system, the dual access may violate a required regulatory segregation of duties. CrossIdeas would let auditors and managers detect the conflict before it becomes a security risk and audit exposure.
CrossIdeas has long been an IBM partner. In January it announced that it has obtained the ‘Ready for IBM Security Intelligence’ validation on IBM Security Identity Manager (ISIM), allowing customers to add CrossIdeas’ Access Governance capabilities on top of their IBM Identity Management platform.
Lighthouse Gateway includes user provisioning, identity lifecycle governance, single sign-on, enterprise user registry services, federation, and user self service.
By integrating the businesses of Lighthouse and CrossIdeas with its own identity and access management offering, IBM (NYSE: IBM) said it will offer a full suite of security software and services that protect and manage a user’s identity.
“Business models are rapidly evolving as employees conduct more of their work offsite. Protecting this data and who has access to it has become a challenge, costing our clients time and money.” Kris Lovejoy, general manager of IBM Security Services, said after the Lighthouse deal was announced. “With this acquisition, IBM provides a unique identity and access management offering that combines proven software and analytics technology with expert managed services that make it easy for businesses to tackle the complexities of security in this new digital world.”