What is Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management?

What is Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management?

Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) is the process of managing and controlling user identities, access permissions, and entitlement privileges in cloud environments. CIEM ensures that organizations can properly govern access to cloud resources to reduce security risks, prevent over-provisioning, and flag potential misconfigurations of identity security tools.

Why the Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management Process is Critical

In dynamic cloud environments, permission and access management quickly become complex due to:

• Multi-cloud deployments.
• Human and non-human identities such as services and applications that require granular access.
• The risks of over-provisioned permissions can result in unnecessary privilege escalation or data breaches.

Organizations are constantly adding new SaaS applications to their technology stack and managing entitlements and permissions for provisioning and deprovisioning in these new environments using legacy and in-house developed Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) systems is time-consuming and error-prone and frequently requires complex customization. As needs evolve, older IGA systems limit an organization’s ability to extend identity governance and security to address increasing demands without disrupting business workflows or user experiences. Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management helps organizations mitigate these risks by maintaining strict governance and visibility over entitlements in cloud infrastructure. CIEM tools, as part of a SaaS-based IGA solution are purpose-built to deliver the critical functionalities that organizations need to ensure their identity governance policies extend easily to new environments.

Key Features of Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management

Policy Enforcement

CIEM automates the enforcement of identity governance policies across all cloud environments in an organization’s IT infrastructure.

Monitoring and Auditing

Continuously monitors user permissions and generates reports for audits to demonstrate regulatory compliance.

Identity and Access Analytics

Analyzes user access patterns to detect anomalies and unnecessary permissions. CIEM tools provide deep insights into onboarded applications and systems and enable visualization of historical access data through dashboards and charts. This functionality enables organizations to see who accessed what, when, and why in their cloud-based environments.

Integration with IAM Systems

As organizations add new SaaS solutions CIEM tools quickly, reliably, and continuously adapt to integrate with other Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems to streamline permission controls across the entire infrastructure.

How Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management Solutions Help Organizations

• Manage Access Permissions: Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management tools grant, monitor, and manage user permissions across multi-cloud environments such as AWS, Azure, and GCP.
• Reduce Over-Privileged Access: CIEM tools enforce the principle of least privilege by identifying and minimizing over-provisioned user permissions, enabling organizations to limit user access only to the cloud-based applications and sensitive resources they need to do their jobs.
• Visibility Across Cloud Environments: CIEM provides centralized access control over all user roles, permissions, and entitlements in cloud-based environments.
• Enforce Compliance: Ensures that access permissions align with security policies, compliance requirements, and identity and access management best practices.
• Automate Remediation: Real time detection and remediation of misconfigured or excessive permissions across all cloud infrastructures in an organization technology stack.

How Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management Fits with Other Tools in IAM

Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management addresses the challenge of permissions sprawl and least-privilege enforcement and plays a critical role in cloud security strategies. CIEM is specifically designed to address entitlements and permissions within cloud infrastructures and is part of a greater SaaS-based IGA solution that includes:

Privileged Access Management (PAM)

PAM focuses on securing privileged accounts that have elevated access (e.g., admin credentials) to critical systems and infrastructure. PAM tools manage and monitor high-risk accounts, control access to sensitive systems, and rotate passwords for privileged users.

Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)

CSPM identifies and remediates infrastructure misconfigurations and security risks in cloud environments, such as public storage buckets and unsecured databases, and provides visibility into the overall security posture of the cloud environment.

Identity Governance and Administration

IGA focuses on governing user identities and their lifecycle, ensuring proper certification, provisioning, and de-provisioning of access rights across hybrid and multi-system environments.

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

CASB monitors and secures data and user activity within cloud applications like Office 365 and Salesforce to ensure compliance and protect sensitive information.

Where to Learn More

Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management is integral to an organization’s IAM infrastructure that includes a blend of modular IAM tools for hybrid and multi-cloud environments and supports all human or machine identities, provides advanced analytics, and supports standards-based identity integrations.

Omada’s SaaS-based Omada Identity Cloud offers an IGA-focused solution that connects and integrates IAM tools to enable any organization to extend identity governance to any application, including cloud-hosted third-party applications and mobile devices, to provide a seamless and frictionless user experience across diverse environments from on-premises, hybrid, and SaaS deployments. Learn more.