Why Identity and Access Management is Important

Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a discipline that incorporates a myriad of technologies, approaches, and methods to give organizations the tools they require to ensure human users and machines can gain access to the application, data, and resources they need, when they need them to perform their roles. Identity and Access Management and the tools that support it help organizations maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of systems, applications, and data. It is foundational to ensure compliance with regulatory frameworks and helps organizations reduce the risk of data security breaches and cybersecurity threats.

Identity and Access Management as a discipline is very important to organizations for neutralizing threats in today’s cybersecurity landscape. Effective Identity and Access Management solutions enable security practitioners to manage user access to assets and applications efficiently across their entire IT infrastructure.

In this post, we’ll explain what is the purpose of Identity and Access Management, explain how IAM works, articulate key benefits that it provides, and give examples of best implementation practices.

What is Identity and Access Management in Cybersecurity?

To explain how Identity and Access Management works in cybersecurity, it helps to consider the three core processes that comprise it:

Identity Verification

This process confirms that a person or entity is who they claim to be. It is essential for organizational compliance with legal regulations. Identity verification typically involves checking personal information, documents, or credentials against reliable data sources to ensure authenticity to reduce fraud or impersonation risks.

Authentication

The process of verifying the identity of a user, system, or device attempting to access a resource, system, or application. This is typically expressed by AuthN (ensures users are who they say they are) and AuthZ (informs what they are allowed to do).

Access Provisioning

The process of granting, managing, and revoking access to systems, applications, data, or resources for users and devices within an organization. It ensures individuals or entities have the appropriate levels of access based on their roles, responsibilities, and the organization’s security policies.

Principal Technologies of Identity and Access Management

The goal of Identity and Access Management is first and foremost securing identity governance without getting in the way of critical business processes. These approaches are foundational to achieving this goal:

Single Sign-On (SSO)

SSO enables users to log in once and access multiple applications, systems, or services without needing to re-enter credentials for each one. SSO streamlines the user experience, improves security, and reduces the burden of managing multiple passwords.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

MFA implements multiple steps that a user must complete before being granted access to internal resources, applications, or data. MFA adds extra layers of verification and requires users to prove their identity using two or more independent user authentication factors. It enhances security by making it more difficult for unauthorized users to gain access, even if passwords are compromised.

Privileged Access Management (PAM)

Privileged user accounts, such as system administrators, database administrators, and network engineers, often have elevated access permissions to resources. PAM is a set of technologies and practices that secure, monitor, and manage access to critical systems, applications, and sensitive information by privileged users or accounts.

These Identity and Access Management technologies integrate with organizations’ modern IT systems and applications to streamline their access management processes and enhance access governance and compliance across the IT infrastructure.

Why Is Identity and Access Management Important?

As technology portfolios expand and identity management complexities grow, it is critical for organizations to adopt modern Identity and Access Management technologies to protect sensitive information and comply with regulations and industry standards such as GDPR and CCPA. Organizations need a strategy to move beyond a costly legacy Identity and Access Management system to control operational costs and security risks without hindering business growth. Identity and Access Management tools provide a solution that preserves valuable resources while enabling the organization to dedicate more attention to critical strategic priorities.

The Benefits of Identity and Access Management

Enhanced Security

Identity and Access Management tools ensure that only authorized users can access sensitive resources and reduce the risk of unauthorized access. Authentication tools add additional layers of security to prevent credential theft. Real-time access monitoring and logging help identify and mitigate suspicious activities.

More Effective Compliance and Governance

Audit trails provide detailed records of user access and actions for internal reviews and external audits. This ensures consistent application of access policies across systems.

Improved Efficiency

Centralized Identity and Access Management provides a single interface for managing user identities and permissions across multiple systems to simplify administration. Automation of provisioning, de-provisioning, and password resets saves time and reduces errors. A modern Identity and Access Management solution offers scalability that enables organizations to accommodate changes in workforce size and integration with cloud environments or partner ecosystems.

Better User Experience

SSO eliminates reduces friction for users and improves productivity. Self-service portals enable users to manage their own profiles without IT support. New users get access to the resources they need in close to real time so they can get up to speed faster.

Easier Integration with IT Infrastructure

Provides secure access across multiple platforms, whether on-premises, cloud-based, or hybrid to deliver consistent security and access management.

Identity Governance and Administration Tools Supporting IAM

Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) tools help organizations manage and control access to resources and data within their IT environment Omada has developed core identity management and access governance functionalities that improve IT security, ensure compliance control, and enable business efficiency. These IGA tools are critical to supporting Identity and Access Management.

Omada Identity Cloud is a next-generation IGA-as-a-service platform that manages digital identity and access rights across all systems, applications, files and data. Omada Identity Cloud delivers complete visibility and control over any organization’s identity landscape. Leveraging real-time data processing, the Omada solution provides unparalleled insights and analytics to streamline the entire identity lifecycle, bolster security, and optimize efficiency. With powerful automation capabilities and a no-code configuration framework, Omada Identity Cloud significantly reduces operational costs while accelerating time-to-value through a 12-week implementation program.

Here are some examples of how Omada has helped support an IAM system in leading organizations:

Bankdata

Denmark-based financial institution Bankdata has achieved significant improvements in Identity and Access Management by leveraging Omada Identity Cloud’s advanced features and automation capabilities to enhance security, improve efficiency, and shift focus from operational to business-oriented activities.

DEKRA

Testing, inspection and certification company DEKRA uses Omada Identity Cloud to streamline and automate the access request and approval process, reducing the number of calls to the Help Desk, as well as ensuring quicker access where appropriate, with the proper security controls in place. DEKRA has seen tangible returns on investment (ROI) within six months and is scaling the IAM solution to take on additional use cases.

Royal Schiphol Group

The Netherlands’ airport concern Royal Schiphol Group deployed Omada Identity Cloud to gain control of the organization’s identity access process and now they can execute identity access control and prove compliance with legislation such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Identity and Access Management Best Practices

With over 20 years of experience and a wealth of knowledge gained from deploying IGA solutions across global enterprises, Omada has distilled its expertise into best practices that organizations should follow to ensure successful modern IAM system deployment.

Enforce the Principle of Least Privilege

Support Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to ensure users only have access to resources essential for their role and reduce the risk of unnecessarily permissioned access to sensitive information. IAM tools also support Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC), where additional factors like location, time, and department are considered to restrict access further.

Automate Access Provisioning and De-provisioning

Automate the onboarding and offboarding processes to mitigate the risk of unauthorized access after a user’s employment status changes. Also, when user attributes change, IAM tools can automatically trigger updated permissions in real time based on the new role.

Monitor User Activity and Detects Anomalies

Log all access activity and provide detailed audit trails for who accessed what and when to spot unusual patterns that could signal malicious insider activity.

Facilitate Access Reviews and Certifications

Run periodic reviews of users’ access rights to prevent privilege creep, where users accumulate access rights over time. Generate reports for access audits to make it easier to identify and remove unnecessary privileges before they become a risk.

Monitor Conflicting Access Rights

Segregation of Duties (SoD) functionality enables the division of tasks to ensure that no single individual has control over all aspects of any critical process and limit opportunities for mistakes or intentional wrongdoing. Prevent users from obtaining access rights that would allow them to perform conflicting actions to reduce the risk of fraud and unauthorized access and maintain tighter control and visibility into high-risk access combinations.

Integrate with PAM and SIEM

Integrate Privileged Access Management (PAM) systems on password vaulting, session monitoring, and real-time oversight to manage high-level access and enhance security for higher risk privileged users who pose a higher risk. Also integrate with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems to provide real-time monitoring and alerts on user access anomalies.

Educate Users

Self-service portals enable users to manage their access rights and reduce the risk of insider threats. Encourage users to take a “security first” posture by regularly showing them policy reminders and helping foster a security-conscious culture.

Conclusion

Implementing an Identity and Access Management solution is essential for modern organizations to improve security, compliance, and efficiency in the face of a growing cyberthreat landscape.

Omada is the leading IGA solution trusted by top enterprises and organizations around the globe. Omada helps clients scale their operations while ensuring all security, compliance, and efficiency needs are met. With the right IGA solution in place, organizations are well on their way secure, sustainable Identity and Access Management. Contact us to learn more about how we can help you grow your business today.