In 2024, digitization is the need of the hour. It is no longer a luxury only a few can afford. From signing into your Google account to logging into your company’s portal, a plethora of tasks you perform every day require your digital identity.
As more and more organizations work with these digital identities, managing them and the access they have becomes important. You cannot afford to have any member of your team access all your records. Access to specific resources is often determined by an individual’s role and designation within an organization.
For this, the IT infrastructure of a company needs to maintain a record of multiple digital identities along with the access each of them has.
This is what identity access management (IAM) is all about.
Let us dive a little deeper.
What Is Identity Access Management?
Identity access management (IAM) is an elaborate framework of technologies, policies, and business processes that involve managing digital identities. As almost every corporate employee works on electronic devices, they log in and function through their digital identity. Managing such identities and the access they have forms the core of IAM.
IAM allows your IT managers to control user access over your digital access and valuable data that should not be shared with every user. From single sign-on systems to two-factor authentication, there are multiple ways in which you can implement a seamless IAM framework within your organization.
Along with preventing unauthorized access, IAM also helps you store the digital identities of your employees in a centralized and secure way. This ensures secure data governance and improves your company’s overall productivity.
Depending on your company’s requirements, you can either deploy an on- premise IAM solution, get a subscription from a third-party cloud service provider, or implement a hybrid solution.
Stakeholders In An IAM Solution
IAM is a holistic solution and follows a comprehensive approach. Multiple stakeholders are involved in its implementation and execution.
Let us have a quick look at the major stakeholders in an IAM solution:
- IT And Security Team(s): These professionals are responsible for maintaining a secure and seamless IT infrastructure within your organization. They often determine if an IAM solution meets your organization’s security standards and technical requirements.
- Business Executives: These are the professionals who ensure that your IAM solution meets the overarching business goals and look over the solution’s fruitful execution.
- Compliance And Risk Management Team(s): Professionals working in these teams ensure that your IAM solution is capable of mitigating major security risks and complies with your company’s regulatory requirements.
- Human Resource Team: Your HR team plays an important role in managing the identities of your employees, especially during onboarding and offboarding them.
- End Users: These are the professionals (employees) whose whole digital identities and access are managed using your IAM solution.
- App Service Providers: If you implement a SaaS IAM solution, ensure that you work with trusted third parties whose services are in tune with your organization’s requirements.
Methods And Protocols For Access Management
Different organizations use different methods and authentication protocols while implementing an IAM solution. Let us have a look at a few of them:
- Role-based Access Control (RBAC):
As the name suggests, this is an IAM method that manages and controls access within your network based on your employees’ roles. It ensures that the access given to an employee is limited to the scope of their role in your organization. Here, the roles of different users are based on multiple factors, such as responsibility, authorization, job competency, and more. The RBAC model ensures that your employees have enough access to your company’s resources necessary to do their respective jobs.
- Policy-based Access Control (PBAC)
This IAM model controls the access rights of users based on specific policies that govern user actions within an organization. It is a more flexible method than RBAC and allows administrators to define specific access rules according to resource properties, user attributes, context of the information shared, and other relevant factors.
- Single Sign-on (SSO)
This user authentication method gives a single user access to multiple apps or resources with a single sign-on. Here, a single set of user credentials is enough to give you widespread access. It prevents users from setting multiple passwords and forgetting them when they are needed the most. SSO also enhances overall IT security in your organization by centralizing user authentication.
- Multiple-factor Authentication (MFA)
This is a more secure IAM framework than SSO. As the name suggests, it requires a user to verify their identity multiple times (often over different devices) before receiving access to a specific application or system. You must have come across this model (two-factor authentication) while signing into your Google account from a new device.
Benefits Of Identity Access Management In 2024
Every year, the need for secure digital access increases. With more and more companies logging in digital identities every year, the need for a secure IAM solution is now more than ever.
Here are a few major benefits of identity access management in 2024:
- High Security, Low Risk
The biggest benefit of identity access management is the security it provides. It prevents unauthorized access and reduces the risk of data breaches. A robust IAM solution helps you protect your digital assets and confidential information you cannot afford to leak.
- High Operational Efficiency
Models like SSO and other IAM features help your employees receive access seamlessly, especially if they work remotely. IAM not only reduces the scope for errors but also eliminates inconsistencies in managing user access. This helps your company and its employees save time, increasing your team’s overall efficiency.
- Ensuring Compliance
A secure IAM framework ensures that your company complies with data sharing and storing regulations applicable in your region, such as GDPR, HIPAA, and more. This keeps you and your company away from legal complications and makes all stakeholders feel secure.
- Making The Most Of Automation
Modern IAM solutions prevent your IT team members from performing repetitive tasks. Seamless automation increases the speed at which data is logged in and access granted, further improving your organization’s efficiency.
Steps To Implement A Robust IAM Solution
Now that you have enough information about what IAM is and why it is needed in 2024, let us go through the basic steps involved in setting up an IAM solution within your organization:
- Define Your Requirements
Before anything else, it is important to know the solution you are looking for. Have your management clearly define your company’s security requirements and the problems you wish to solve. Identify the gaps and security lapses your IAM solution will cover.
This will give you a clear direction and make the following steps fall into place. Moreover, prepare an extensive budget depending on the amount you want to spend on an IAM solution.
- Decide The Mode Of Implementation
Once you know what you are looking for, it is time to zero in on the mode of IAM implementation. Here, you can either choose to implement an on-premise solution, subscribe to a third-party service provider, or go with a hybrid model.
- Look For The Right Service Providers
Especially if you wish to implement a cloud-based IAM solution, look for third- party service providers who best suit your company’s security requirements. Shortlist the most suitable options and choose the one that best suits your company.
Do not forget to involve every IAM stakeholder while making this decision.
The Final Word
In 2024, a secure IT infrastructure is incomplete without a powerful identity access management solution. IAM helps you store and manage your employees’ digital identities effectively, staying as far away from data breaches and risky access as possible. If you still have not, it is high time you start looking for the right IAM solution partner to strengthen your enterprise’s IT security!