Identity as the New Security Perimeter – Evolving Role of IAM and IGA

In 2023, Forbes reported that cyber threats significantly rose, with cyberattacks totaling 2,365 and impacting over 300,000 individuals. This represents a 72% surge in data breaches compared to 2021, the previous record year. 

Moreover, the financial repercussions of these breaches are severe, with the average data breach cost reaching $4.45 million. This alarming trend highlights the growing vulnerabilities in our digital infrastructure. These may have been caused by the increasing reliance on technology and digital solutions and accelerated by the global pandemic. 

Traditionally, businesses manage cyberattacks through prevention, detection, and response strategies, relying heavily on firewalls, antivirus software, and intrusion detection systems (IDS). 

Employees are also educated about best cybersecurity practices and implement strong password policies. Upon detecting an attack, incident response teams swiftly isolate affected systems, analyze the nature of the breach, and mitigate any immediate threats to prevent further damage. 

However, as cyber threats have evolved in complexity and frequency, cybersecurity solutions have also advanced. Businesses now explore incorporating more sophisticated solutions like Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Identity Governance and Administration (IGA). But what are these new cybersecurity solutions? Can all businesses implement them on their systems?

This article explores the core roles of IAM and IGA in mitigating risks and enabling organizations to manage and secure identities systematically in an increasingly perimeter-less digital environment.

IAM Systems: Keeping the Unauthorised Persons Out

IAM is a framework that facilitates the management of electronic or digital identities. In this system, the focus is on who has access to what and to what extent. By organizing user identities and their associated access permissions, IAM systems ensure that the right individuals access the right resources at the correct times and for the right reason. 

These systems are crucial because they provide a single point of truth across multiple platforms for the identity and access lifecycle, from on-premises infrastructure to cloud-based services. 

In this article, Gartner predicts the increased role of IAM and its leaders in the overall cybersecurity landscape. IAM systems secure remote access to resources and enhance regulatory compliance. They ensure that only authorized personnel can access sensitive data and simplify the user experience through seamless yet secure access mechanisms.  

Examples of IAM systems include user registration and provisioning, password management, access rights, single sign-on (SSO), and multi-factor authentication (MFA). 

In other scenarios, such as healthcare, IAM systems help protect patient records by ensuring that only authorized healthcare providers can access sensitive patient data, complying with laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the U.S. In retail, IAM systems manage customer identities, secure e-commerce transactions, and protect against fraud. 

Strengthening IAM with IGA

IGA is a sub-discipline within the broader IAM that focuses on governance and policy management regarding user identities and access rights within an organization. IGA solutions provide the framework for defining, enforcing, reviewing, and auditing IAM policies and managing the identity and access lifecycle across the entire organization. 

Some of its roles include the automation of user provisioning and de-provisioning, the enforcement of security policies, the auditing of user activities, and the assurance of compliance with regulatory requirements. 

IGA tools enable organizations to effectively manage and reduce the risks associated with inappropriate or excessive access rights, ensure compliance with governance mandates, and improve operational efficiency by automating and streamlining access control processes.

In practical scenarios, IGA is pivotal in ensuring that access to critical information is appropriately governed. For example, in financial institutions, IGA systems can manage employee access to confidential financial data, automatically updating or revoking access rights as employees change roles within the company or leave the organization. This minimizes the risk of internal fraud or data leakage. 

Similarly, in large enterprises with complex organizational structures, more data, and more users, IGA helps maintain a clear view of who has access to what, which is crucial for meeting compliance standards such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or SOX. 

IGA automates many aspects of identity and access management, from provisioning new users to de-provisioning those who leave or change roles. This automation reduces the administrative burden and enhances efficiency by updating access rights in real time with minimal manual intervention.

Modern IT Environment – Understanding the Evolving Risk  

The days of having all computing and applications behind a network firewall are over. The new environment is a highly complex landscape with a remote and global user population, a proliferation of cloud systems, on-premise data centers, and remote devices.

Organizations have chosen flexibility in this remote and global world, where multiple teams with multiple devices collaborate from various locations in different time zones. This has made the traditional network perimeter-based security notions obsolete and ineffective. 

Identity as the New Security Perimeter

In the modern IT environment, digital identities form the logical security perimeter. These digital identities can be broadly divided into:

Human identities consist of employees, contractors, students, vendors, and other users in the organization. The management of these human identities is the responsibility of the IGA systems. They often face multiple challenges of having disparate sources of truth for these human identities and having identity-proofing issues. The non-employee identities face additional challenges of a lack of a proper source of truth system and a broken onboarding & offboarding process.

Non-human identities can be service or admin accounts for any on-premise or cloud applications. These non-human identities are among the most significant attack vectors, as their management and ownership are often lacking. Unfortunately, effective lifecycle management (onboarding, patching, offboarding, and upgrades) for these service accounts takes a backseat for most organizations due to competing priorities. Most organizations do not know how many identities exist in their environments. 

IGA will help any organization manage the lifecycle of both human and non-human identities as they join, change jobs, or leave their position. IAM will protect these identities, especially in the cloud / SaaS environment, with Single-Sign-On (SSO) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) capabilities and, in turn, secure the new security perimeter. 

Understand Your Environment and Security Needs

While IAM and IGA systems offer extensive benefits in terms of security, compliance, and efficiency, organizations must conduct a thorough needs assessment before implementing these solutions. 

Each organization has unique requirements and different user populations. Blindly adopting IAM and IGA solutions without understanding the specific needs of the company, its employees, and its users can lead to inefficiencies, poor adoptions, unnecessary expenses, and user frustration. 

Moreover, implementing IAM and IGA systems often requires significant changes to organizational processes, including regulatory compliance updates and extensive employee training. Such changes can be disruptive if not managed properly. In these scenarios, businesses can benefit from the expertise of cybersecurity experts, who can guide them to effective system implementation and change management. 

These are essential to ensure that all users are comfortable with the new systems and that the organization can realize the full benefits of IAM and IGA, providing a smooth transition and widespread adoption.

About the Author:

Suramya Bakshi is a technology expert committed to advancing the field of digital security. With a Master of Science in Information Technology from Carnegie Mellon University, he has established a solid academic foundation that has propelled his professional endeavors. 

Currently working as the Director at Cyderes, a global cybersecurity services company, Suramya leverages expertise in cybersecurity to guide emerging and established enterprises through the complexities of protecting their intellectual property and data from external threats. He also consults them on leveraging and maximizing critical cybersecurity measures such as Zero Trust, IAM, IGA, Data Governance, and more. 

Suramya has fifteen years of overall experience working in IAM, IGA, data governance, and secure software engineering, where he delivered high-level cybersecurity measures that ensured the safety and security of data in businesses in industries such as healthcare, financial services, energy, higher education, technology, and more. 

Throughout his career, he has also achieved several prestigious cybersecurity certifications, including ISC2 CISSP and CompTIA Security+, demonstrating his excellence and commitment to improving and enhancing U.S. cybersecurity.