At Citrix, we’ve long held the position that work isn’t a place, it’s a thing you do. Workplace strategies have been forced to evolve since the beginning of 2020, and all signals point to hybrid and remote work environments becoming the rule, not the exception.

The change in workstyles has affected how we collaborate, how productivity is measured, and how employee engagement is defined. There’s also been significant impact on SecOps teams, including how they assess risk and implement policies that mitigate threats. Gaining visibility into remote workers and the potential risks they may be introducing to company resources has also proved challenging.

SecOps teams have long relied on log files to provide the data needed to identify anomalies and potential threats. While log files are an excellent source of raw data, reviewing that data can be time consuming for teams that are already resource strapped. Additionally, SecOps teams must be able to detect patterns and potential threats from those log files, which can be challenging for even the most experienced security experts.

Introducing the Access Assurance Dashboard

We’re pleased to announce the release of the Access Assurance dashboard, now generally available in Citrix Analytics for Security.

The Citrix Analytics for Security Access Assurance dashboard

The Access Assurance dashboard provides a near real-time visualization of all the access requests to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. This enables SecOps teams to view data that was previously only available through log files in an easy-to-consume format to help quickly identify any potential threats. When the Access Assurance dashboards show requests from unfamiliar locations, SecOps teams can quickly drill down into locations to investigate further.

With this view, admins can see which users are making access requests from those locations and to view other risky actions taken by the user. This can include activities like dangerous web browsing, excessive clipboard usage, first-time access from a new device, and much more.

While anomaly detection is an important first step in securing your company data, implementing policies to prevent data breaches is equally as important. Earlier this year, we introduced geofencing policies that implicitly deny access requests from outside a defined area.

You can now not only identify where unauthorized access requests originate but implement a geofencing policy to block requests from specific countries, all from the Access Assurance dashboard.

Unparalleled Visibility, Policy Automation to Protect Users, Corporate Data

With changes in workstyles, SecOps teams have been forced to adjust both security risk assessment and mitigation techniques. With the release of the Access Assurance dashboard, Citrix Analytics for Security customers get an easy-to-consume, near real-time visualization of the origination of access requests. This helps ensure that remote and hybrid workers are accessing Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops from their usual and safe locations. If any users have logged on from unknown locations or new locations, you can validate their logon details and take necessary actions to mitigate any threats to your Citrix environment.

Both the Access Assurance dashboard and geo-fencing policies are now generally available to Citrix Analytics for Security customers. Learn how to get started in our product documentation.