Compugen's SecurePass gives customers direct view into security risks

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Enabling organizations on any device anywhere, without compromising security

For Compugen, the ability to deploy customer solutions quickly is key. “Cloud shortens time to market,” says Harry Zarek, President, CEO, and Founder of Compugen. “Cloud allows you to move very quickly, to respond to the needs that you have, whether with your customers, internally, or with your partners.”

The Toronto-based infrastructure management company has been serving customers across Canada for over thirty years with a compelling menu of managed services and point solutions. Historically, the company had delivered infrastructure projects in months or even years, but it wanted to increase the efficiency of deployments to keep pace with the market because, as Zarek insists, “customers need to get on with their business.”

Zarek and company leaders wanted to ensure their business transformation would deliver unprecedented value to their customers. In 2016, to maintain and strengthen its position as an IT leader, Compugen looked to refocus on Microsoft Cloud solutions that could be relevant across segments and verticals, and deliver on Compugen’s aspiration to help customers support their core businesses with technology. The result? SecurePASS.

Active Directory is core to security in the cloud and on premises

Traditionally, Compugen advised its customers on how to secure their data centers, implementing secure firewalls, closing off endpoints, and securing organizational data within that perimeter. Over the past several years, thanks to software as a service (SaaS), data has left the building. The perimeter of the network has moved from the firewall to wherever end-users do business, introducing a new set of security challenges. According to Zarek, “What we're seeing is a proliferation of SaaS application usage across the industry and it's usually an order of magnitude larger than most customers realize.”

SecurePASS leverages Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security to give customers the technology they need—like Single Sign-On, Multi-Factor Authentication, and Microsoft Entra Conditional Access—to keep their environments safe without limiting users. “I’d say 99.9 percent of our customers use Microsoft directory services today. Microsoft Entra ID is simply an extension of the customer's Active Directory environment that they're already using,” says Joe Addison, National Director—Microsoft Infrastructure Optimization at Compugen. “Microsoft Entra ID allows SecurePASS to federate with thousands of known SaaS applications, removing work for customers and allowing Compugen to accelerate the customer onboarding of these applications.”

Reducing security concerns speeds cloud adoption

Security remains the number one blocker to adopting cloud technology, and one Microsoft partners hear often. Compugen sought to address this concern with its SecurePASS solution.

“No one wants to remember 36 passwords for all the various services they use, and with SecurePASS, users don’t have to,” adds Addison. “SecurePASS gives customers a sense of comfort knowing they have someone monitoring for threats and vulnerabilities.” Compugen works with customers to evaluate their entire environment and determine which SaaS applications need to be monitored for vulnerabilities, managed, or even blocked. “And if you want to block it, we can export a block script to your firewall and accelerate that for you," adds Addison. What really differentiates this solution is the ongoing management that Compugen performs. Unusual activity such as large downloads, unusual user location or batch uploads (like credit card numbers) can be caught as they happen and stopped before they cause an issue.

SecurePASS also gives organizations visibility into “Shadow IT”—the phenomenon where users bypass IT and download unapproved SaaS applications, exposing the organization to risks—thereby giving IT more control over its expanded perimeter as they grow their businesses in the cloud.