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At a time when problems with cybersecurity and data leakage are more problematic than ever, it is only logical that Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems are gaining more support.

At its core, the IAM system serves to ensure more productivity from company employees and to provide every user with access to the right data and tools. This alone increases the security within the company.

IAM systems also bring the process of user identification to a whole new level, allowing one to get away from the gradually outdated credentials routine.

In this story, we invite you to familiarize yourself with what IAM solutions are and how exactly they help modern companies to optimize their identification and access management processes.

Why is IAM so Vital?

IAM systems can be of great benefit to any business, not just a large enterprise with many employees. By implementing IAM, you will be able to achieve a qualitative improvement in the efficiency of your employees' work and the safety of your processes.

Efficiency

Due to the fact that the IAM system provides users with access to a certain set of limited tools and content, company employees can no longer waste time dealing with an infinite number of credentials.

Most often, the IAM system has the SSO function (single sign-on), which allows an employee to log into the system once and have access to the functionality that they are entitled to by the nature of their activity and role.

Safety

The protection of any system always has one weak link - the human factor. A mistake that can be made in the work with passwords and accounts can lead to horrendous data loss and a serious breach in the security system.

When using the IAM system, the likelihood of an employee losing their password or email is reduced to a minimum, thereby multiplying the protection of the company.

In addition, the IAM system can be provided both as a cloud solution from a remote vendor or as an on-premise solution. From the point of view of convenience and protection, cloud-based IAM solutions are preferable.

In terms of benefits, the Identity Management solutions are so vital for business due to the fact that they:

Help to correctly identify users of your system;
Help to define and assign roles that relate to your users;
Define and give access to the content that corresponds to the user's role, restricting it from content that belongs to other roles;
Allow you to combine several different roles in groups and distribute content accordingly;
Allow you to fully manage users within the system: add, delete, change roles, combine into groups Increase data protection within the system;
Accelerate access so that users can enter the system from any device and location;
Help to meet changing user data retention regulations;
Provide business flexibility by eliminating the need for additional security silos.

How Does IAM Operate?

Identity and Access Management concepts are:

Ensuring that the user requesting access is part of the general user database and he can request access to content on your system.
Providing this user with access only to the content that relates to him according to his role, not allowing him to interfere with other content and processes.

As an example, you can imagine a user who logs into the IAM system and requests access to content or tools of your company. At the first stage, the IAM system will check the entered data with the internal database and either confirm the authentication or not.

If confirmed, the IAM system will proceed to the second stage, at which it will assess the user's role and provide them with access to the CMS system, limited according to their role. So, if it is an editor, it won't have access to the admin-role functionality, and vice versa.

This is the basic essence of the IAM service system, but in addition, depending on its complexity, it can also be responsible for:

User account management: Everything related to users of your system is carried out here: adding, deleting, changing roles, granting specialized access, and so on.
Sophisticated authentication: The IAM system must make sure that the user requesting access is really who he said he was, therefore the principles of zero-trust and multi-factor authentication are used here.
Brief on activities on the platform: The IAM system is able to generate reports on all actions that the user performed on the platform, down to details such as entry and logout times.

Key Principles of IAM Implementation

In order to make sure that the implementation of the IAM system will benefit your company and won't disrupt the established processes, the following principles must be observed:

Create a list of used elements: Simply put, it will be a list of everything that users will be able to interact with in the future IAM system, all your available content, technologies, and tools.
Determine the key characteristics of the IAM system that your company needs. Consider whether you need to introduce multi-factor authentication, whether your employees and your users will interact with a single system, whether you need automated distribution of content according to user roles, and so on.
Document the business objectives of the IAM implementation, the expected result, and possible risks. All members of your IT team should have an understanding of why the IAM is being implemented, what result it will bring and what risks need to be mitigated in the process.
Create a matrix for assessing the success of the IAM implementation. This can take the form of a process by which the productivity of employees, the number of errors made (their reduction), and the speed of work with the system will be calculated. It is important to have quantitative data to base conclusions from the implementation of the IAM.
Concentrate on identity: The very essence of the IAM implementation and its basic principles suggest that the security and authentication of the system shouldn't be based on credentials but on the identity of an individual user.

IAM Challenges

Despite the fact that the advantages of implementing IAM systems are obvious, experts in this issue are faced with a number of challenges, such as:

1. Lack of Understanding of the True Importance of IAM

While there is a general understanding of how data loss or a security breach can harm a company, the issue remains controversial.

Thus any breach is perceived as a potential loss of income and damage to the company's reputation, while the damage from such an event can be much more serious. The loss of sensitive and legal data, which is also used in interactions with government agencies, can lead to much more serious consequences, so the importance of IAM is not fully understood.

An additional problem is that many view the implementation of IAM as a business solution to optimize processes and increase productivity. In fact, this process is much more tied to the issue of increasing the level of security, and it should be treated accordingly.

Difficulties in Estimating the Budget and ROI of the IAM

The issue of assessing the budgets for the implementation of IAM remains one of the main challenges in this matter. A very reasonable question often comes up: Shouldn't we instead spend money on a tool that will improve and automate our security measures?

The second part of the problem is the assessment of ROI from the implementation of the IAM. Who will consider the saved data and money from the absence of potential errors within your company associated with the loss of passwords and other data?

All this leads us to the fact that before starting the implementation of the IAM system, it is necessary to consider how the result of this process will be assessed and by what metrics.

Nevertheless, there is always a compelling argument in this dispute: cyberattacks caused $6 trillion in damage in 2021, and by 2025 this damage is expected to rise up to $10.5 trillion.

The Bottom Line: IAM can no Longer be Ignored

Malware technologies and methods are constantly being improved, and the problem of security breaches using stolen credentials remains one of the most common to this day.

In such a situation, the importance of implementing IAM can no longer be ignored. As the needs of your customers, the number of employees, and the technology, features, content, and tools they will use grow, the chances of data loss increase exponentially.