IAM Identity & Access Management affects
every business unit throughout the organization, IT departments will benefits
by implanting IAM solutions, which support business processes and provide solutions
that meet corporate objectives without exposing the company to undue risks.
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What is IAM ?
Identity & Access Management (IAM) is a term that
refers broadly to the administration of individual identities within a system,
such as a company, a network or even a country. In enterprise IT, identity
management is about establishing and managing the roles and access privileges
of individual network users. IAM systems provide IT managers with tools and
technologies for controlling user access to critical information within an
organization.
The core objective of IAM system in
a corporate setting is this: one identity per unit (person. Machine, software).
But once that digital ID has been established, it has to be maintained,
modified and monitored throughout what has been called the
"access lifecycle."
So IAM systems provide
administrators with the tools and technologies to change users’ role, track
user activities and enforce policies on an ongoing basis. These systems are
designed to provide means of administering user access across an entire
enterprise and to ensure compliance with corporate policies and government
regulations.
IAM address three main questions:
- Who has access to what
information?
- Is the access appropriate for the
job being performed?
- Is the access and activity
monitored, logged, and reported appropriately?
The list of technologies that
fall under this category includes password-management tools, provisioning
software, security-policy enforcement applications, reporting and monitoring
apps and identity repositories. Nowadays, these technologies tend to be grouped
into software suites with assortments of additional capabilities, from
enterprise-wide credential administration to automated smart-card and digital-certificates
management.
Why should I care about IAM?
IAM system is inextricably linked to security and
productivity. Companies are using IAM systems not only to protect their digital
assets, but also to enhance business productivity. IT can benefits from the
systems' central management capabilities by reduce the complexity and cost of
maintaining the IT infrastructure. The centralized access control also supports
consistent security policy enforcement.
IAM systems also give organizations a way to control any
types of end stations —laptops, PDAs and cell phones, tablets —buzzing around
the enterprise “BYOD – Bring Your Own Device”. Many of these devices are
neither owned nor provisioned by the companies whose networks they need to
access. The ability to enforce a set of policies, on the devices that connect
with the network, through the management of the users’ identity of those is
fast becoming a must-have security capability.
And besides, the government says you have to care about
identity management. Sarbanes-Oxley, SOX Gramm-Leach-Bliley, HIPAA —each holds
the company, in various ways, responsible for controlling access to customer
and employee information.
Identity and access management (IAM) is the process of managing who has access to what information over time. This cross-functional activity involves the creation of distinct identities for individuals and systems, as well as the association of system and application-level accounts to these identities. IAM includes policies,
processes and workflows for on-boarding, off-boarding, identity modification, security applications, provisioning, authentication, authorization and entitlement enforcement. 