Permit.io has launched its new Permit Elements, a low-code solution to help companies manage their own access controls (security).  To find out more, VMblog spoke with Or Weis, the company's CEO & Co-Founder.

VMblog:  Can you give our readers a reminder of the general problem Permit.io is trying to solve?

Or Weis:  Every product requires access control and permissions. However, developers keep rebuilding it from scratch for each new product, and sometimes even multiple times for the same product. Permit.io solves this problem by providing developers with a full-stack access-management framework that can be easily implemented into their product with little or no authorization knowledge. All the components, back-office, and interfaces required for developing end-to-end application level access-management are already built into Permit.io.

VMblog:  You have a brand new product on the market: Permit Elements. What's it about and how does it work?

Weis:  Permit Elements is a solution for developers who need to give their clients the option to manage permissions for their own users. It provides ready-made embeddable interfaces that provide customers with the ability to create, delete, and manage their own access controls. This is all done with pre-built UI components and low-code interfaces, making the solution user friendly and consistent with the rest of the Permit.io experience.

VMblog:  Why would a company want to manage their own access controls? Isn't that what they are paying Permit for in the first place?

Weis:  Companies don't want to build access-control, but they do want to control it. By managing their own access controls, companies can govern which identities have access to which resources. This enables them to secure their sensitive information, assets, and systems according to advanced security principles like least-privilege. They can also meet compliance standards (which is especially important in industries like healthcare and finance). Achieving these requirements is an accelerator and a requirement for cloud adoption.

VMblog:  What role does low code play in all of this? Do you think low code is critical for getting more teams involved with security?

Weis:  Low-code is eating the world. Not only does it make more developers more efficient, it also empowers other teams outside of engineering to be autonomous and remove developers as a bottleneck. With security becoming a core requirement and an everyday concern across organizations, all roles need to be involved in security ops. Low code enables all users to take part in enforcing hardened security controls by making them accessible.

VMblog:  How does the Permit team's experience from companies like Facebook and Microsoft impact how you think about security? Are the problems different for startups and smaller companies than they are for large enterprises -- or is everyone worried about the same things?

Weis:  The problem of building access control is painful and resource consuming for companies of all sizes. But it can be even worse for larger organizations like Facebook and Microsoft because these enterprises have multiple products and convoluted architectures that are often inter-connected, as well as tens of thousands of identities (if not more). Their access-management controls have to take these all into account and provide a secure and granular mechanism that enables governing access management. This makes building authorization from scratch even harder. Working at and with enterprises of these sizes, as well as small startups, has given us insights into how to build a solution that enables the business while also prioritizing the developer experience.

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