Identity And Access Management: Controlling Who Has Access To A System And What They Are Able To Do Within That System

A key role of an Identity and access management system is to authenticate that an entity is who it claims to be. The simplest authentication occurs when a user enters a username and password on the login screen. The IAM system checks the database to make sure they match the records. Modern authentication solutions offer a more sophisticated approach to better-securing assets.

What Are Identity And Access Management?

Identity and access management (IAM) ensures that the right users and roles within your organization (identities) have access to the tools they need to do their jobs. Identity management and access system allow companies to manage employee apps without having to log in as an administrator for each app. Identity and access management systems allow organizations to manage a variety of identities, including people, software, and hardware such as robotics and IoT devices.

Why IAM?

Businesses need IAM to provide online security services and improve employee productivity.

• Safety. Traditional security often has one point of failure: passwords. If a user’s password is hacked, or worse, if a password recovery email address is hacked, your business is vulnerable to attack. The IAM service isolates the sources of errors and protects them with tools that catch errors when they occur.
• Productivity. Once logged into the main IAM portal, employees no longer need to worry about the correct passwords or access levels to do their jobs. Not only does each employee have access to the best set of tools for their job, but access can be managed as a group or role rather than individually, reducing the workload for IT personnel.

Why IAM Matters

A business leader and his IT department are under increasing regulatory and organizational pressure to protect access to corporate resources. As a result, you can no longer rely on manual, error-prone processes to assign and track user rights. IAM allows for granular access control and auditing of all company resources, whether they are located on-premises or in the cloud, and automates the operations that need to be done.

With its ever-growing capabilities, including biometrics, behavioural analytics, and AI, IAM is ideally suited to the needs of the new security landscape. For example, IAM’s tight control of resource access in highly distributed and dynamic environments is consistent with the industry’s transition from firewalls to Zero Trust models, and IoT security services requirements.

Types Of Digital Authentication Methods

Using IAM, organizations can implement a variety of digital authentication methods to prove their digital identities and authorize access to corporate resources.

Unique Password

The most common type of digital certificate is a unique password. Some corporations demand longer or more complicated passwords that combine letters, symbols, and numbers in order to increase password security. Unless a user’s single sign-on can automatically gather a collection of passwords behind the entry point, it’s usually a pain to remember unique passwords.

Pre-Shared Key (PSK)

PSK is another type of digital certificate that shares passwords between users authorized to access the same resource. Think Wi-Fi passwords for branch offices. One of the problems with shared passwords like PSK is that it takes time to change passwords frequently.

Behavioural Authentication

When dealing with highly sensitive information and systems, organizations can use behavioural authentication to drill down in more detail and analyze the dynamics of keystrokes and mouse usage characteristics. Organizations can use artificial intelligence, a trend in IAM systems, to quickly identify non-standard user or machine behaviour and automatically lock down systems.

Biometrics

Modern IAM systems use biometrics for more accurate authentication. For example, it collects a variety of biometrics such as fingerprints, iris, face, palms, gait, voice, and possibly DNA. Biometrics and behavioural analytics have proven more effective than passwords.

Conclusion

As remote working has become the norm and the use of mobile devices has become extremely prevalent, the field of identity and access management has expanded significantly. Unsecured networks and unprecedented user expectations have led to an influx of new device connections, a flood of requests for remote access to sensitive information, and phishing and other web-based threats when users visit unauthorized websites.