Several prominent Twitter accounts got hacked recently. Everything you will read below shows how important Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions are.
According to the platform’s spokesperson, some of its employees fell to a social engineering attack.
Hackers took control of the employee admin accounts that had access to high-level systems and tools to execute the scam successfully.
Can this happen to you and your company as well?
What is Identity & Access Management
As the name suggests – Identity and Access Management defines and manages the access privileges of a user account and its roles in the organization.
IAM also defines the conditions in which users are denied or granted the same privileges.
The users of an Identity & Access Management solution may be clients, in which case we call it customer IAM, or employees of an organization (employee IAM).
IAM seeks to create a single digital identity for every individual user. The identity is then overseen throughout its lifecycle, and permissions are changed as needed.
Why is IAM so Important?
These days, enterprises need to comply with an ever-increasing number of regulations and internal rules for protecting their information resources.
Manual methods of Identity Management are error-prone and cannot be relied on to track the privileges or roles of different users
IAM automates such actions and provides minute access control over all enterprise accounts and assets wherever they may be (With their own servers or cloud).
IAM Is Necessary For The IoT Era
The emerging security landscape includes an exponential growth of end-points and an increased attack surface.
Identity Access Management solutions have a wide range of features such as AI, big-data back-end analytics, and biometrics that can help organizations mitigate such increasing risks.
The Internet of Things is a vast, dynamic, and distributed system with pressing security needs. It is only with these tools that organizations can control resource access in such dynamic environments.
Components of Identity & Access Management
An IAM system can be classified into four main components. They are:
- Authentication – The user provides credentials for gaining access to a network or resource. Once authentication is complete, a session is created and referred until the user chooses to log out.
- Authorization – This is used to check if users can access certain areas or resources. The IAM authorizes requests by checking them against its policies.
- User Management – It consists of roles, groups, password management, identity creation, and maintenance of privileges and roles.
- Central User Repository – Stores information and transfers it to other services, providing a logical bird’s eye view of all identities in an organization.
Benefits of Identity & Access Management in 2022
It provides privileges such as access rights are provided according to policy, an organization can ensure that individuals’ requests are logged, authenticated, and have authorization.
It also delivers much greater control over who accesses enterprise resources, and they can thus prevent breaches with ease.
The automation elements of an IAM increase efficiency and preserve resources.
It also allows companies to adhere to internal policies and compliance requirements by facilitating authentication, auditing, and preventing problems around account privileges.
IAM Tools, Types, and Technologies
IAM technologies have several tools that include password management, applications that enforce policy and security, identity databases, and monitoring apps.
API security tools allow IAM in business to business commerce, cloud applications, and microservices.
The types of authentication methods used in Identity & Access Management systems include the creation of distinct passwords.
Pre-Shared Keys allow a password to be shared among different users who are authorized to a particular organizational resource but is less secure.
Artificial intelligence enables behavioral authentication in highly sensitive scenarios where keystrokes and mouse behavior can all be matched. If a machine is behaving out of the norm, it is shut down.
Biometrics such as fingerprints, iris scans, DNA scans, voice, and face scans are also used in modern IAM methods.
But after all, with everything I have said today…
Is Identity & Access Management For You?
IAM is for organizations of all sizes.
Your company can get a competitive advantage by using an IAM system and applying best practices.
Such systems will significantly reduce costs, increase productivity, and help in better collaboration.
Good news for you: implementing them to your cybersecurity posture is easier now, that our experienced team run with IAM tools.
Is this what you want!?
Contact us for dedicated IT Security Services today.