What is Identity Security?

What is Identity Security?

Identity Security is a strategic approach to securing digital identities, ensuring they are protected from unauthorized access, misuse, and cyber threats. It encompasses the processes, technologies, and policies designed to safeguard identities and their associated credentials across an organization’s systems, applications, and resources. With the growing number of digital identities and the rise of cyber threats targeting them, Identity Security has become a critical component of modern cybersecurity strategies.

Why Identity Security is Important

Protects Against Cyber Threats

User credentials are often the target of phishing, brute force, or credential stuffing attacks. Identity Security defends against these vectors.

Supports Digital Transformation

Enables secure identity management in complex environments like cloud, mobile, and remote work.

Reduces Data Breach Risks

Many breaches stem from compromised credentials. By securing identities, organizations minimize this risk.

Enhances Trust

Builds confidence among employees, contractors, partners and other stakeholders that their identities and data are protected.

Key Components of Identity Security

Identity Protection

Safeguarding the creation, storage, and use of digital identities and their credentials. Identity Security employs encryption, secure storage methods, and protections against social engineering attacks such as phishing.

Authentication Security

Ensures that only legitimate users or systems can access resources. Approaches include multi-factor authentication (MFA), password-less authentication, and biometric verification.

Access Control

Defines and enforces rules for granting or restricting access to systems and data. Implements approaches like the Principle of Least Privilege and Just-in-Time access to minimize exposure.

Privileged Access Management (PAM)

Focuses on securing and monitoring privileged accounts, which have elevated access to critical systems. Includes tools for session monitoring, credential vaulting, and fine-grained access controls.

Identity Governance and Administration (IGA)

Manages the lifecycle of identities, ensuring that access rights are appropriate and comply with organizational policies. Includes periodic access reviews, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), and policy enforcement.

Threat Detection and Response

Monitors identity-related activities for anomalies or suspicious behavior, such as unusual login patterns or access attempts. Integrates with tools like security information and event management (SIEM) and user behavior analytics (UBA).

Zero Trust Principles

Adopts a “never trust, always verify” approach to identity security. Continuously validates identities and access requests, even within the network perimeter.

Identity Risk Management

Assesses the risk level of each identity based on attributes like role, access level, and historical behavior. Automatically adjusts access permissions or identifies high-risk identities for further review.

Goals of Identity Security

Prevent Identity Theft

Protect user credentials and personal information from being stolen or misused.

Reduce Attack Surface

Minimize opportunities for attackers by limiting unnecessary access and securing privileged accounts.

Enhance Compliance

Meet regulatory and industry standards like GDPR, HIPAA, and SOX by implementing robust identity controls.

Mitigate Insider Threats

Prevent misuse of access rights by malicious insiders or compromised accounts.

Enable Secure Collaboration

Facilitate secure access for employees, contractors, and partners without exposing sensitive systems.

Support Business Agility

Enable organizations to quickly and securely onboard (provision) and offboard (deprovision) users in on-premises, hybrid, cloud, and multi-cloud environments.

How Identity Security Works

Identity Verification

When a user attempts to access a system, their identity is verified through credentials and authentication factors.

Risk Assessment

Each access request is evaluated for potential risk using contextual information like location, device, and behavior.

Access Enforcement

Access is granted or denied based on predefined policies and real-time risk analysis.

Monitoring and Analytics

Identity-related activities are continuously monitored to detect anomalies, such as access from unusual locations or devices.

Response

If a threat is detected, automated actions like session termination, access revocation, or credential reset are triggered.

How Identity Security Contrasts with IAM

While IAM focuses on the operational management of identities and access, Identity Security emphasizes securing those identities from threats and vulnerabilities. IAM provides the framework for managing who can access what, while Identity Security ensures that this framework is secure from attackers and misuse.

Examples of Identity Security in Action

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

A user must verify their identity using a password and a one-time code sent to their phone before accessing corporate resources.

Privileged Access Monitoring

A PAM solution monitors all administrative account activities in real-time and identifies unusual commands for review.

Anomaly Detection

A user’s login attempt from an unexpected place triggers an alert, and access is blocked until additional verification is completed.

Credential Vaulting

Administrative credentials are stored in a secure vault, and users must check them out with proper justification for temporary access.

Where to Learn More

Identity Security is foundational for organizations looking to stay ahead of evolving cyber threats while maintaining compliance, security, and operational efficiency. Organizations can take Identity Security to the next level with a SaaS-based IGA solution like Omada Identity Cloud.

Omada Identity Cloud is purpose-built to deliver complete visibility and control over an organization’s complete Identity Security landscape. Leveraging real-time data processing, Omada Identity Cloud provides the insights and analytics organizations need to streamline the entire identity lifecycle, bolster security, and optimize efficiency. Learn more.