Optiv, a security solutions integrator and Top 250 MSSP, has been awarded the first major enterprise contract under Shared Services Canada’s (SSC) cybersecurity procurement vehicle (CSPV) for its network device authentication (NDA) solution.
Optiv is helping the Canadian government “fulfill its aim to establish a collaborative environment to effectively manage device certificates across federal government IT infrastructure,” the cyber advisory company announced in a prepared statement.
Today's workforces and their devices are more distributed than ever, leading to a rapidly expanding threat landscape, Optiv asserts. As such, enterprises and governments alike must be able to proactively and jointly respond to emerging cyber threats, while also providing timely and appropriate access to trusted devices.
Optiv Enlists Venafi, Crypto4A
Optiv Canada's NDA solution is delivered in partnership with Venafi, a specialist in securing machine identities, as well as Crypto4A, a next-generation hybrid security platform that manages the lifecycle of device keys for zero trust-based architectures. The combined offering, says Optiv, allows Canada to move away from manual device management by leveraging automation to address the proliferation of interconnected devices.
Cheryl McGrath, Optiv area vice president and country general manager for Canada, explained the impact the NDA solution is expected to have on the nation’s cyber defenses:
"It's estimated there will be nearly 1.5 million devices connected to the Government of Canada's infrastructure at any one time within the next four years. A manual approach to network access is unsustainable and opens everyone up to operational and security risks. Our NDA project provides a new set of infrastructure-wide solutions for device authentication, allowing for automated provisioning and the capacity to adapt without expensive hardware changes."
Kevin Bocek, vice president, security strategy and threat intelligence at Venafi, extolled the Canada’s commitment to stronger identity management:
"The realities of digital transformation mean that every organization, including governmental agencies, are facing unprecedented growth in the number of machines on their networks. With this decision, the Canadian Federal Government is demonstrating their commitment to their vision of a strong machine identity management strategy which is essential to the security of the systems that underpin our digital world. This vision is not possible without a strong network device authentication program which is the cornerstone of identity and security."
More About Optiv
In April 2022, Optiv announced a Privileged Access Management as-a-Service (PMaaS) solution powered by the CyberArk Privilege Cloud identity security platform, as reported by MSSP Alert. The PMaaS solution provides planning, implementation and ongoing management to help end-users protect their privileged accounts against cyberattacks.
Optiv is owned by investment company KKR and provides monitoring, MXDR and other managed security services to global organizations. It also works with more than 400 security technology partners. In October 2021, Optiv rebranded itself as the “the cyber advisory and solutions leader.”
