By Mike Lee
Let’s start by saying that corporate IT environments are complex and convoluted. Thousands of both internal and external users have access to apps, internal systems, and other resources. At a time when businesses are rather grappling with growing compliance requirements, the last thing that an organization expects is a security breach. Insider threats are for real, and often also more confusing, because not all breaches are intentional. The core purpose of identity and access management is to secure an organization against lapses, breaches and leaks of critical data. Simply called IAM, identity & access management is not merely a tool, but also a necessity.
Understanding the challenges
Employees and company people often have to access data and apps for diverse operational reasons. The access to data may be essential, but the extent of the access has to be monitored and reviewed for every use. For instance, when an employee leaves the organization, all access rights must be removed immediately, which doesn’t always happen. Also, companies don’t necessarily have a transparent policy as how access rights are available to employees. These rights have to be reviewed, because the roles of employees within an organization always changes. Not to forget, there are employees and users who have the malicious intent of using security data for private reasons. A company needs to ensure that beyond the firewalls for preventing external threats, all internal threats are accounted for.
What to expect from IAM tools?
Well, it depends on the tool, but the core aspect of IAM is to establish an identity lifecycle management. Inducing transparency at all levels of the organization is critical, and it is necessary for an IAM tool to be capable of scalability, so that solutions can be customized for every business. The purpose of such tools is to create a system for access management, where access reviews, approvals, modifications, and deletions are easy. Auditing is another aspect where IAM can be useful, and businesses can expect to get genuine assistance from the developers on making the new tool a part of the system. Simple things like blocking suspicious accounts automatically are some of the other features to expect from IAM tools.
Final word
Data breaches and leaks may have financial and regulatory implications on a business for sure, but beyond that, it can damage the repute of the organization, often beyond immediate repair. Make sure that your company is using an effective tool for identity and access management.
