Companies today use a range of systems to transfer and store data, perform tasks, and, most importantly, manage their customers and staff members. With so many online and offline factors, good cybersecurity is a must. That’s where identity and access management (IAM) comes in to organize user identities and determine who accesses what. It’s an essential part of any complex firm’s data protection.

Here’s everything you need to know about IAM policies, including what processes they should feature and how to implement them effectively.

The Role of Identity and Access Management in Data Protection

To stave off fraud, hacking, or other misuses of data, identity and access management relies on an identity management database where user details are stored and verified. These users can be customers, employees, or non-human entities like bots and APIs.

When a user tries to access resources, an IAM system also checks that they have the right permission and tracks what they actually do with the data. This is to catch mistakes, abuse of privilege, and criminal activity.

Put simply, integrating IAM into your data protection practices ensures you can authenticate your human and non-human users, allocate permissions according to their roles, and block them from platforms, files, or data they’re not allowed to access.

Considering the internal and external threats to user credentials, it’s a wise move. While 38% of companies still perform manual IAM checks, automated tools are becoming increasingly essential to countering illicit activity and policy violations. The market value of IAM solutions was $26.3 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow by 130% by 2028.

Key Components of Identity and Access Management

The functions that accomplish the benefits above are intricate but the same in most identity and access management solutions. Ninety-five percent of organizations implement them for a legitimate reason and drive IAM growth and interest in multi-layered systems.

Explore how each basic IAM component works and how the network as a whole protects corporate data. 

Identity Management

As already mentioned, a database containing user records is a key ingredient to the identity management part of IAM. Besides IDs and login credentials, it logs people’s names, phone numbers, email addresses, superiors, and other information gathered over time.

When you onboard a new customer or employee, their basic details go into the database. As their account or responsibilities in the company evolve, their information changes accordingly. If they leave, records should reflect that, too.

Identity management checks draw on the database’s information to assess whether an individual who’s trying to log in is a legitimate user. This also means that the database must always be up to date to ensure your IAM system can make accurate decisions about the given users.

Access Management

This is the other aspect of what IAM does for your business. Once their identity is confirmed, a user is checked for permissions. What areas, resources, and data are they authorized to use, and how?

Factors like their role, agreement, responsibilities, and security clearance within the organization determine what they should have access to. And it’s up to the company to sort the permissions of its workforce and customer base.

Privileged access management (PAM) and Role-based access control (RBAC) are common approaches to establishing boundaries and protecting everyone’s data from breaches.

Authentication and Authorization Tools

For extra security, an IAM system uses various software to authenticate identities and authorize their access to resources.

IAM practices typically include common but effective tools, like usernames and passwords, multifactor authentication, risk-based authentication, and single sign-on. But more complex solutions are often warranted too, especially with medium to large businesses.

When someone creates a new account or tries to checkout, for example, fraud monitoring tools use data points they gathered from IP analysis, device and browser fingerprinting, digital footprinting, social media profiling, and more to confirm their identity.

If the details provided trigger a blacklist alert or just don’t match up, the IT department can take action, whether it’s to block this person from entry or delete their compromised account. The global economy already loses $5.1 trillion per year to fraud, so such preventative measures are essential.

Encryption

Cybersecurity programs are useless without encryption, and IAM is no exception. This component ensures data traveling back and forth is safe from hacking and theft.

When it comes to a corporate environment, everything from passwords to transactions needs to be encrypted at a high level.

If you deploy cloud-based as well as on-premises solutions, for example, this extra layer of protection is doubly important to safeguard your activities.

Auditing

It’s not just your identity management database that needs constant supervision. All your IAM processes work best when you check on their progress on a regular basis.

Setting up analytics, paying attention to reports, and acting on promising or suspicious patterns are key parts of effective auditing.

Repeating these cycles means you’ll be on top of everything related to IAM, not to mention any corporate areas it affects.

IAM Tips for IT Professionals

Once you understand the technical elements of identity and access management practices and how they benefit your company’s security, it’s time to work out the most efficient way to combine them. While doing so, keep the following tips in mind.

Don’t Rely on Manual Processes Alone

Managing your business manually is impractical and dangerous. Criminals develop their methods to outsmart the most robust cybersecurity systems around. As a result, they’re likely to trip up even the most talented IT team, so don’t overlook automated remediation.

In addition to being constantly alert and disciplined, automated IAM tools can streamline processes, taking a lot of weight off your human workers’ shoulders and letting them save their energy for specific tasks like reading audit reports or manually assessing potential fraudsters.

Tailor Your IAM System to Your Circumstances

For starters, you could centralize your IAM databases and dashboards. This way, authentication, authorization, and all other processes are easy to set up, manage, and monitor.

From there, consider solutions like Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), which combines different tools and makes full use of machine learning to keep an eye on your data and any security-related events.

The analysis and reports such solutions offer can also help with your compliance needs. If your organization has, say, AML or HIPAA regulations to adhere to, make sure the IAM system you put together addresses that, too.

Apply a Zero Trust Strategy

Ninety-six percent of security experts attribute their corporate success to Zero Trust adoption. Better security, compliance, threat detection, and analytics are among the reasons why this assumed breach model is so popular among businesses.

Incorporating it into your IAM policies reduces the chance of missing critical data, from a user’s identity and location to their service providers and work patterns. Least-privilege access also strengthens the boundaries you set on what data different people can use.

IAM Benefits Your Business 

Organizations with people-facing responsibilities can only survive the modern corporate landscape for so long without identity and access management policies in place.

Identity and access management systems let you manage your customers and workforce more efficiently. They improve your IT department’s productivity with hybrid manual and automated processes. They protect your data from unauthorized access, misuse, and breaches. They can even help with compliance. These are but a few of the ways in which IAM can support businesses. Once you fully understand its technology and functions, get the right system for your needs.