The Role of Identity Now in Modernizing Identity Management

Modernizing Identity

Identity management is one of the greatest security challenges enterprises face, yet most organizations struggle with effectively managing it. Identity is essential to securely accessing data and applications across distributed environments like cloud or SaaS apps; yet most organizations don’t know who has what level of access. Often this occurs outside the purview of traditional enterprise security controls.

Therefore, we established the Chief Identity and Data Officer position as an innovative response to identity management’s rising complexity, supporting security imperatives, operational efficiencies and compliance standards. This role provides organizations with best practices and framework to better navigate this constantly-evolving environment.

Organizational Identity Many organizations struggle to devise an identity and access strategy that aligns with overall business goals, leading them to fail in meeting user access requirements, which can cause governance and compliance issues down the road.

At a time of data breaches and cyber threats, organizations must ensure they take identity security seriously. Your identity serves as the gateway to all of your digital assets; thus it’s essential that your plan ensures only those authorized have access while simultaneously mitigating risks of account takeover attacks.

What Is Identity and Access Management?

Identity and Access Management (IAM), one of the key security measures used to safeguard business operations as they become more digitalized, ensures only properly authorized individuals have access to company data.

IAM (Identity Access Management) is the set of processes and technologies used by businesses to organize, define, and manage digital identities of its staff and assign various access privileges accordingly. Access privileges often depend upon an individual’s role within an organization as well as direct needs for certain applications or data in fulfilling that role.

An IAM solution typically comprises of directory services such as Active Directory or OpenLDAP that store, validate and manage identities within a secure infrastructure. SSO features may also be included, and often multi-factor authentication (MFA). Furthermore, an IAM solution may utilize User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) to detect anomalous behaviors or indicators of compromise (IoCs), such as new account creation without authorization or odd access patterns.

An Identity Access Management solution often integrates with help desk systems to allow users to self-service certain tasks. It can also ensure a seamless, omnichannel customer experience by ensuring customers start transactions on a website and finish them offline via mobile apps or stores without interruptions or gaps in service. Plus, with its transparent privacy policies and clear communication of how identities are being used by businesses it helps build trust with customers as well as protect against attacks that could compromise both reputation and revenue streams of businesses.

Understanding Identity Management

Identity Management: Deciphering its Definition

Identity management (IDM) is a business framework for assigning digital identities varying levels of access privileges within an organization’s security architecture, to ensure only authorized people have access to necessary data and applications in order to do their jobs, while keeping others away.

IDAM refers to a set of processes and policies designed to ensure the appropriate people have access to resources on a network, but also covers what happens when identities move beyond its confines – this may include employees working remotely, contractors, vendors or users on managed apps both onsite or cloud. IDAM might also encompass devices connected to the network including carbon-based (people) or silicon-based (computers and the Internet of Things).

Kiser asserts that modern systems must address all these moving parts to provide a smooth user experience, likening it to a club where bouncers screen all entrance applicants before admitting them into the building. He believes IDM systems must do this for all their users while doing it increasingly securely as organizations adopt cloud services.

According to a recent survey, two-thirds of federal IT leaders indicated that improving Identity and Access Management was one of their top priorities for their agencies. To do so successfully, they must reimagine identity management.

The Modern Identity Landscape

Modern Identity Landscape

Digital identities have created a new reality that’s testing traditional identity management practices. Not only must IAM solutions manage users, groups and access privileges but must also support an ever-evolving ecosystem of human and machine identities – this shift necessitates that IAM solutions integrate more closely with security and fraud systems while offering increased automation and communication among IAM modules.

Legacy and homegrown IAM environments are struggling to adapt to this new reality, leading to inefficient manual processes which consume significant storage space, slow updates down significantly, inhibit scaling capabilities, and present high risk for human errors during onboarding and access provisioning processes. Such errors could potentially have serious repercussions for productivity as well as security.

Add to that, the proliferation of services, containers, and microservices with individual identities that require management is another significant challenge for IAM. Some IAM solutions include service accounts (SSO), multifactor authentication, entitlements management, role engineering authorization and life cycle management as examples of tools used for effective IAM.

Identity verification and authentication – whether for online banking, ecommerce or employee device protection–is essential in safeguarding data and preventing fraud activity. With losses due to cybercrime exceeding $10 billion by 2022 alone, this issue cannot be taken lightly. Decentralized identities could help turn this tide by giving control back to users while decreasing centralized authority needs and protecting privacy more efficiently.

Key Components of Modern Identity Management

Key Components of Modern Identity Management

Identity Administration Management (IAM) relies on tools that ensure the integrity and validity of digital identities, such as advanced user authentication methods, comprehensive directory services and precise authorization policies. IAM allows organizations to onboard users and systems quickly by verifying user credentials, allocating appropriate levels of access for specific environments and offboarding users when their employment ceases, ultimately helping ensure security policy enforcement as well as regulatory compliance compliance.

Identity verification methods are evolving to provide both more secure authentication and an intuitive user experience. Passwords are being supplemented or replaced by biometric authentication allowing a user to verify their identity by providing images, fingerprints or iris scans; this reduces unauthorized access risk while simplifying user experience by eliminating multiple passwords that need remembering.

Authentication mechanisms are increasingly being employed as additional layers of security through multifactor authentication (MFA) and adaptive authentication. MFA requires that users provide multiple forms of identity verification before accessing sensitive data, often including “something they know,” like passwords or tokens, with “something they have,” like physical devices or mobile phone software tokens that generate time-based codes. Meanwhile, adaptive authentication varies authentication requirements depending on perceived levels of risk.

Technologies Driving Identity Modernization

Colleges can only rely on old identity and access management tools for so long before being compromised by cyberattackers or cybersecurity specialists. Institutions must update their core capabilities regularly or else one vulnerability in password policies or multifactor authentication solutions could expose an entire network to compromise.

Technologies Driving Identity Modernization

Modern approaches for verifying identity emphasize security and privacy to provide greater trust and an enjoyable user experience. Some recent trends include:

Biometric Authentication

Fingerprint recognition, facial scans, iris scanning and gait analysis have become an increasingly important aspect of identity verification, providing greater accuracy than username/password combinations or knowledge-based questions. Furthermore, they are difficult to falsify making them ideal for protecting sensitive information.

Blockchain for Identity Verification

With its decentralized structure, Blockchain makes an excellent solution for identity verification purposes, providing users with more control of their digital identities while decreasing reliance on central authorities. Self-sovereign identity platforms allow individuals to manage credentials independently while sharing only what’s necessary, thus decreasing data breaches risk.

Contextual identity verification is an emerging trend that uses multiple factors to authenticate users, such as facial recognition and pattern matching to authenticate iPhones; behavioral monitoring such as typing speed or mouse movements to detect fraud; continuous authentication using algorithms which monitor a user over time triggering alerts if anomalies arise; this technique ensures the integrity of cloud applications such as email, social media or online learning platforms.

Identity Management for Mid-Sized Businesses

Marketing online can often be a process of trial and error. Something may look appealing on paper or be recommended by colleagues, but only by testing can we know for certain whether something works. This is particularly relevant for calls-to-action (CTAs), which serve as gateways to conversion; their success often hinges on their compatibility with your unique selling point (USP).

Identity management seeks to grant users and devices access to assets of an enterprise in accordance with their authorized roles, whether that means onboarding new users and systems quickly, authorizing access privileges appropriately, offboarding quickly or offboarding when applicable – as well as keeping access privileges current with user attributes and policies of an enterprise.

Regulating user access has traditionally relied upon authentication methods to verify a device or user, such as passwords, digital certificates, hardware tokens and smartphone software tokens as well as biometric elements like fingerprint recognition or facial recognition. More recently however, approaches that bypass passwords altogether such as Fast Identity Online Alliance (FIDO) have gained popularity.

As organizations expand, their identities become ever more complex, necessitating an Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) program to keep up. A modular SaaS solution such as Saviynt can give mid-sized businesses an advantage with modern identity management practices such as onboarding, provisioning, and privileged access management – you can learn more in this on-demand webinar!