Identity & access management (IAM) is an essential aspect of a modern business’s cybersecurity infrastructure. Efficient IAM systems help companies protect access to valuable data, including employee information, customer information, systems data, and company records.
This guide covers IAM as a modern security utility for businesses of all sizes, explaining why any business can use IAM processes to improve its regulatory compliance, employee trust, and client relationships. Security guidance may be a complex workflow, but with the right IAM software solutions, it can become an accessible part of your business’s security process.
What is Identity & Access Management in Business?
Businesses must authorize users to access company information on a modern cloud or on-site network. Their permission can be temporary or restricted to specific systems. Still, all system users should be visible to the system moderators.
For businesses with unoptimized identity & access management systems, users are granted or denied access on an individual basis. The problem with this conventional version of IAM is that moderators must expend resources vetting each user, determining their role, and assigning the access permissions they need to complete their task. This often leads to errors, costly administrative time, and insecure login credentials.
By contrast, modern IAM solutions use role-based systems to monitor complex cybersecurity aspects more efficiently. With a growing number of network channels and multi-site networks, most businesses need access to modern identity & access management solutions to keep their users, clients, customers, and archives safe from unauthorized access.
What is the Role of Modern IAM?
Modern IAM systems mitigate the risks of credential theft, insider threats, and outside attacks by deploying a secure access management process across multi-channel networks. Modern businesses often incorporate multi-cloud environments, remote users, IoT devices, and more into their corporate network. Without well-implemented IAM software, securing these systems is a difficult and time-consuming process that often fails to meet changing regulatory standards.
Businesses use IAM software to assure access control across their network. IAM helps companies meet the challenges of digital transformation and avoid the costs of regulatory non-compliance, These features allow businesses to deploy an identity & access management strategy that can keep up with changing security needs in a digital marketplace:
1. Managing User Identities
The primary function of IAM solutions is to create, change, and delete user identities within a business’s network environment. With the ability to manage user identities in real time, managers can efficiently monitor accounts, manage privileges, and reject the permissions of unauthorized users before their system access becomes a security breach. This is also known as “deprovisioning.”
2. Authorization and Authentication
IAM software authenticates user identities with usernames, passwords, and other credentials. For enhanced security, modern IAM frameworks use MFA or multi-factor authentication to make sure all system users have approved access. Authorization for privileged accounts allows managers to take user permission management a step further, assuring that users only have access to the resources they need to complete their tasks.
Another useful feature is a single-sign-on credential or SSO, which managers can use to give one-time access to users for short-term assignments. This creates a more secure network by preventing outdated user credentials from circulating outside the business’s control.
3. Analytics Generation
By generating reports of system functionalities, user activities, and security events, managers can use IAM systems for real-time surveillance of their users’ behavior. This allows them to detect security breaches early and complete compliance audits more efficiently.
Benefits of IAM Solutions
Modern identity & access management systems provide business network managers with numerous benefits over conventional methods. These include:
- Centralized Access Identities: With IAM solutions, businesses can centralize their user access permissions, security reports, user behavior data, and network privileges on one system. This allows them to seamlessly provision access and simplify administrative tasks while increasing their network’s security.
- More Secure Identity Confirmation: Error-prone manual IAM systems leave businesses vulnerable to bad actors seeking to infiltrate networks with outdated or unsecured credentials. With multi-factor identification, companies can enforce more secure access controls and monitor all users simultaneously.
- Continued Compliance Training: Modern IAM solutions give businesses the ability to maintain the current security protocols in their systems and train administrators on proper access controls. Centralized IAM software can be used to create user guides for employees, compile security documents, and conduct training sessions for network managers.
Contact an Experienced Cybersecurity Team to Optimize Your Identity & Access Management Process
IAM user behavior monitoring allows organizations to detect suspicious activity on their network that would otherwise go unnoticed by manual security sweeps.
Advantage.Tech provides managed IT, consulting, and cybersecurity systems to over 800 clients across numerous industries, helping them secure multi-channel cloud networks against modern security threats.
Since phishers and bad actors have gained new methods to bypass conventional corporate security systems, organizations must respond with greater advances in identity access management to protect their employee credentials and sensitive data networks. Contact us today to learn how advanced IAM security can protect your valuable user data from the latest threats.
