What is Identity Management?

What is Identity Management?

Identity Management is the process of creating, maintaining, and managing digital identities for individuals, devices, and systems within an organization. It is a foundational component of Identity and Access Management (IAM) and ensures that every identity is authenticated, authorized, and accounted for across all systems and applications.

Why Identity Management Is Important

• Ensures employees, contractors, partners, and vendors always have the appropriate access they need to carry out their job efficiently.
• Enforce compliant access by ensuring employees do not have access to systems or data which they should not have.
• Enforces the Principle of Least Privilege throughout the user identity lifecycle.
• Mitigates the risk of a data breach in case user accounts are compromised.
• Monitors and maintains audit trails of which user approved what and why.

Key Components of Identity Management

Identity Creation and Registration

Establishes a unique identity for users, devices, or applications during onboarding and captures and stores identity attributes, such as names, email addresses, roles, and unique identifiers.

Password Management

Creates, stores, organizes, and protect passwords used to log into accounts and systems and prevents sensitive information from unauthorized access while allowing users frictionless access to their permissioned accounts.

Identity Lifecycle Management

Managing the entire lifecycle of user, machine, and AI-generated identities within an organization. It includes processes and policies to initiate, maintain, and delete user identities securely and efficiently. Identity Lifecycle Management ensures that employees, partners, contractors, vendors and systems have a level of access to sensitive data and applications sufficient to fulfill their roles at every stage of their relationship with the organization. This includes assigning an identity and granting initial access to resources (provisioning), updating identity attributes and access as roles or job functions change, and revokes access and removing identities when users leave, or devices are retired (deprovisioning).

Authentication

Verifies the identity of users or devices attempting to access systems. Common authentication methods include passwords, biometrics, security tokens, or multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Identity Storage

Stores identity data securely in directories, databases, or identity repositories. Examples include Active Directory (AD) or Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) systems.

Single Sign-On (SSO)

Enables users to log in once and gain access to multiple applications or systems without re-authenticating.

Federated Identity Management

Enables identity sharing across multiple organizations or systems using standards like SAML, OAuth, or OpenID Connect. For example, logging into third-party apps using Google or Microsoft accounts.

Self-Service Capabilities

Provides tools for users to manage their own identities, such as resetting passwords, updating personal information, or requesting access.

Integration with Access Management

Works in tandem with access management systems to enforce access policies based on user roles or attributes.

Goals of Identity Management

Secure User Access

Protect applications and data in the organization’s IT infrastructure by ensuring that only authorized individuals or devices can access resources.

Streamlined Operations

Automate identity-related tasks to reduce manual workload and improve efficiency.

Enhance User Convenience

Simplify access processes for end-users through SSO, self-service, and federated identities.

Create Audit Trails

Generate reports to inform the organization about changes to permissions, access requests, approvals and custom objects and store trails for potential audits.

Simpler Compliance

Meet regulatory and industry standards by maintaining accurate and auditable identity records.

Scalability to Dynamic Business Needs

Enable organizations to manage identities across growing and complex environments, including hybrid or multi-cloud systems.

How Identity Management Works

Onboarding

A new employee joins the organization, and their identity is created in the system, often linked to their job title or department.

Authentication

The employee logs into their account using their credentials, verified through the authentication system.

Access Provisioning

Based on their role, they are granted access to relevant applications and resources.

Lifecycle Management

As the employee is promoted, their access rights are updated automatically to reflect their new responsibilities.

Offboarding

When the employee leaves, their identity is deactivated, and access to all resources is de-provisioned.

Examples of Identity Management in Practice

A user logs into an organization’s systems via SSO, using their corporate email and MFA for authentication.

A device in a smart home network is registered with a unique digital identity to securely communicate with other devices.

A customer logs into a retail website using their Google account through federated identity protocols.

An IT admin deactivates the account of a former employee, ensuring that all associated access is revoked.

Where to Learn More

Omada provides information about best practices for enabling automated, streamlined Identity Governance and Administration processes and explains how to create the foundation for secure, efficient, and user-friendly Identity Management. Learn more.