As organizations move forward with digital transformation, their identity-related threat landscape grows in scope and sophistication. To meet this challenge, they need their Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) solution to play a more significant role in their overall Identity and Access Management (IAM) strategy. Recent research findings have identified specific business trends that uncover the specific functionality that organizations must have in their IGA solution to manage identity-related risks effectively as their business processes evolve. In this post, we will identify the three major trends that are driving the need for more robust IGA and suggest what specific functionality organizations should look for when evaluating new solutions.
Trend #1
More organizations need to scale rapid onboarding and ingestion of identity data from multiple sources to get users working faster
As organizations onboard applications, employees, partners, and contractors at an unprecedented pace, the need for speed has become much more acute. The biggest challenge with onboarding so many applications and identities are to ensure that you are not granting unnecessary access to assets and getting users up and running in as close to real time as possible. This is highlighted as a significant challenge that already exists in most organizations. The State of Identity Governance 2024 reports that 71 percent of IT security and business leaders are currently concerned about users having unnecessary access to systems and applications and overly permissive accounts. This problem is likely to become more serious as organizations shift into overdrive and onboard more applications or even bring on new teams from outside the organization (eg mergers) which could involve another source of truth. Having to handle multiple source systems and do so at scale without impacting review and approval workflows and still enabling users to have just the right level of access at the right time to do their job will be a game-changer for IT organizations.
When evaluating modern IGA, your solution must provide real-time identity data ingestion functionality built on a modern, cloud-native architecture. This enables organizations to cut onboarding time from days to minutes and get remote workers producing on day one as well as surface security risks such as insufficient separation of duties (SoD) at the moment. Fast data ingestion also enables rapid identity updates using microservices and well-defined APIs. Along with speed, having the flexibility to source identity data from multiple systems with ease will lower the integration hurdles facing IT and Identity Governance teams.
Trend #2
Increased demand for AI/ML-driven automation to optimize IGA without slowing down business processes
When organizations must apply manual processes to identity management, there is a greater risk of error. In a recent ESG survey, identity management professionals questioned say that 74 percent of security breaches involve a human element such as error, user misuse, use of stolen credentials, or social engineering. Even considering this, many organizations are hesitant about automating actions like revoking user access. They do not want to risk denying access to what a user needs to do their job because then they must spend time troubleshooting the problem. Many organizations see the paradox here and believe that generative AI can help. The State of Identity Governance 2024 reports more than 53 percent of IT security and business leaders surveyed identified generative AI as an important feature when evaluating a new IGA solution for deployment.
Machine learning functionality in an IGA solution performs cluster analyses to determine context and recommendations for new/updated roles that better align with the needs of the workforce. AI operationalizes ML-driven recommendations through chat-guided recommendations, making it easier and faster to confirm requests, drive efficiencies, and eliminate rubber-stamping approvals. Look for an IGA solution that provides the intelligence needed to inform decision-making across identity lifecycle workflows. This will enable you to automate identity management and deliver sufficient security while minimizing productivity loss. AI/ML-powered role modeling and recommendations, access requests, approvals, and certifications provide the human-readable context needed to remove unnecessary complexity, reduce confusion, and mitigate certification fatigue.
Trend #3
As organizations add more applications and assets to their environments, there is a greater demand for more connectivity from IGA solutions
The rapid adoption of cloud-based SaaS applications has created new challenges for access management, identity governance, and compliance professionals. One report indicates that the average organization currently utilizes 130 or more SaaS applications. Most industry analysts agree that the use of SaaS applications across all organizations will continue to expand, putting robust connectivity from IGA solutions center stage. The State of Identity Governance 2024 reports that 51 percent of IT security and business leaders surveyed believe a connectivity framework that supports any application and infrastructure is an important feature when evaluating a new IGA solution.
Having the flexibility to connect and securely integrate your IGA solution with any on-premises and hybrid deployed systems is a game changer for most organizations because it automates identity governance for all users across any architecture and facilitates the onboarding of new application deployments and user access changes at scale. Look for an IGA solution that enables a seamless centralized control plane that provides visibility into an unlimited number of decentralized resources. This eliminates the need to move applications or their data (e.g., credentials) to the cloud. Your solution should allow you to manage on-premises and hybrid applications as well as user accounts in place, supporting zero-knowledge architectures and integration to credential vaults in the process. Also, find a solution that enables connectivity to the cloud with both a cloud application gateway and VPN connectivity for on-premises applications, as this will give you the highest level of flexibility.
To meet the new demands that digital transformation places on the modern enterprise, your identity governance solution must enable you to gain control and visibility into applications and entitlements across your entire architecture. With the right IGA solution deployed, you can achieve the security, compliance, and efficiency required and remove unnecessary costs from your identity management process.
Join Rod Simmons, Omada’s VP of Product Strategy, and Chief Architect Nils Böckmann to find out how you can gain unprecedented speed, intelligent decision support, choice of connectivity, and unparalleled efficiency from the industry’s first real time Identity Governance platform.
In this webinar, you’ll learn how to:
- Leverage increased identity data ingestion speeds to eliminate deployment and onboarding bottlenecks
- Use machine learning-generated context to make better identity management decisions
- Access on-premises systems including sensitive data like credentials without taking anything out of your control or off-premises as you move to the cloud
- Include IGA workflow in your current IT systems without forcing users to change how they work
