Identity and Access Management: an Overview

Identity and Access Management (IAM) falls under the umbrella of IT security and data management. It is essentially the process of authenticating that a user (machine or person), is who they say they are, and authorizing them with the appropriate amount of access to technological resources. Most companies dealing with sensitive data would need some sort of variation or combination of IAM.

There are six core topics that are involved with the functions in IAM. Below is a simple description of what each of these topics in IAM address.

1. File Access Manager (FAM): it is a solution that gives your organization visibility into who has access to your files/data.   
2. Privileged Access Management (PAM): it is a strategy that focuses on safeguarding the identities of users with special access. These identities have an access that goes beyond a regular user as they have an elevated access to accounts, data, processes, and systems across an IT environment.   
3. Single Sign-on (SSO): is an authentication method that allows users to log in once and access multiple applications with the same credentials.  
4. Multi-factor authentication (MFA): works in conjunction with SSO and grants users access by verifying two or more pieces of evidence (one time code sent to mobile/email, authentication app, secret questions) to authenticate their identity.  
5. Provisioning and De-Provisioning: it is the simple process of onboarding, transitioning, and removing users from your network and ensuring they have the right access/privileges for their role.   
6. Secrets Management: helps you manage authentication credentials (secrets) which include passwords, keys, APIs, and tokens for use in applications, services, privileged accounts, and other sensitive parts of the IT ecosystem on-premises and in the cloud.  

Opportunity comes to those who are prepared - don't wait until you have a security breach to start protecting your company's digital assets. Connect with us to learn more and see how we can help you develop a identity program tailored to your business' needs!