How to ensure business security with identity and access management (IAM)

Back in the old days, maintaining one’s identity in the enterprise was as simple as setting up a username, and associating a password with it.

Fast forward to today, times have changed. Businesses can no longer rely on the old-fashioned and error-prone processes to assign and manage user privileges. Instead, we rely on ‘automation‘ to take over these tasks, thereby reducing the load on IT to maintain an expanding database of identities, and manage their corresponding levels of access. And this, is the foundation over which an identity and access management solution operates.

What is identity and access management?

Identity and access management (IAM) enables businesses to manage identities and define the roles and access privileges for individual users and devices across the enterprise network. This in turn, facilitates the user’s/device’s access to corporate resources within the company’s cloud/on-premise infrastructure.

Or, as the people at Gartner would like to say,

Identity and access management (IAM) is the discipline that enables the right individuals to access the right resources at the right times for the right reasons.

Now, on closer examination, the core functionality of an identity and access management strategy can be derived from the two terms it incorporates. Identity management, and access management.

Let’s take a closer look at these two terms.

What is access management?

User accessing corporate resources 

While identity management deals with managing, monitoring, and maintaining individual identities within a network, access management involves granting permissions to the required entities to access corporate resources and infrastructure, and blocking unauthorized entities from accessing them.

Together, they make up a single solution termed ‘identity and access management’.

What is the purpose of IAM?

In today’s distributed business environment, your employees and customers exist globally, and at least some (if not all) of your corporate infrastructure resides in the cloud. As a result, phishing, spoofing and other social engineering attacks have become significant threats to enterprise security. Identity thefts have increased twofold, and enforcing strong usernames and passwords just won’t cut it anymore.

Your business must be ready with a proper solution to validate employee credentials and regulate their access to corporate resources, all the while ensuring that the least possible time is wasted through the authentication process. Identity and access management frameworks aim to accomplish just this.

IAM equips IT with the ability to secure and maintain your employees’ identities, while also controlling their access to sensitive information within the corporate network. With IAM, employee access can be limited to just the tools and resources required to carry out their specific tasks.

Moreover, regulatory guidelines such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), hold businesses accountable for managing access to customer and employee information.

In addition, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) mandates that organizations safeguard the personal data and privacy of European Union citizens and businesses. With the help of identity and access management solutions, organizations can ensure that their workflows and processes comply with these regulations.

How does identity and access management work?

On a fundamental level, identity and access management (IAM) solutions perform three key functions: identifying users, authorizing access, and authenticating identities.

• Identify: Maintain and manage a directory (or repository) containing the attributes, characteristics, and specifications of entities (users and devices) within a system. This includes adding, removing and updating individual entities and their roles within the system.

• Authorize: Assign roles and privileges to individuals or groups of entities in the network, and grant them permission to access the required corporate resources based on their level of authorization.

• Authenticate: Protect sensitive data within the system, and secure corporate infrastructure by enforcing measures to authenticate users and devices that attempt to access the enterprise network.

The methods and tools used by an IAM solution to fulfil the three functionalities mentioned above include,

Today, identity and access management (IAM) solutions include many additional capabilities. These often include biometrics, Fast Identity Online (FIDO) authentication, adaptive MFA, machine learning, artificial intelligence, risk-based authentication, and Zero Trust security.

Zero Trust and cybersecurity with Hexnode MDM

Moreover, businesses can manage identity and access in the cloud by using third-party service providers. This approach is known as Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS).

Identity and access management with Hexnode UEM

Hexnode offers a robust suite of identity and access management functionalities, empowering businesses to provide seamless access to corporate resources with minimum downtime.

In addition, by implementing a central identity management platform, Hexnode enables you to enforce advanced security policies in the enterprise, all the while maintaining regulatory compliance requirements.

Hexnode’s IAM functionalities

Enforce authentication

Maintain security

Manage access to apps and content

The future of identity and access management

We all know what’s happened after the COVID pandemic. Remote work has become the standard for enterprises everywhere. And with more and more influx of devices, employees accessing corporate data through open networks, and the looming threat of cyber attacks, the need for a solid identity and access management solution has now become more crucial than ever.

Hexnode’s IAM solution helps businesses protect sensitive data. It also helps organizations meet evolving regulatory compliance and enterprise security requirements efficiently.