IAG serves as a vital protector of your organization’s confidential information, a compliance enforcer, and a business efficiency booster.
IAG solutions are designed to put you in control to being the single point of contact for managing users, their access rights and governance policies across the entire IT structure.
If an IAG strategy is properly put in place, you can avoid most cases of unauthorized access to your system, loss of data, and non-adherence to set industry standards. In addition, your operations will benefit from improved productivity with the help of IAG solutions for automating routine processes, minimizing the level of manual interference, and providing for the uniformity of policy implementation throughout your company.
IAG vs IAM
The terms Identity and Access Governance (IAG) and Identity and Access Management (IAM) can be used synonymously, but refer to two different but related concepts. This paper aims to provide a clear distinction between these two approaches to identity management so that organizations can adopt the best approach as they adopt the concept in their organizations.
IAM is mostly centered on the creation and control of user accounts and their permissions. It includes user registration and login, account creation, and security measures of the user’s accounts. IAM solutions guarantee that only the right employees have access to the right resources for work in order to allow secure working.
However, this approach is wider and more comprehensive in comparison with IAG which deals with identity management in a more complex way. It extends IAM and places another layer of control and monitoring over the top of it. IAG solutions offer user access patterns, policy violation detection, and regular access reviews to ensure users’ access rights are up to date with the policy and the regulations.
Whereas IAM focuses on the initial provision of access rights, IAG guarantees the permanent control, evaluation, and modification of the rights in the course of the user identities’ life cycle. The actual governance process occurring over the course of new and continuous is aimed at avoiding risks and ensuring compliance and efficacy.
With IAM and IAG solutions, it is possible to create the end-to-end identity management and governance solution that can provision and manage user identities as well as address the ongoing compliance and risk management issues.
The ways IAG improves security in today’s organizations
At the time when cyber threats are rapidly developing, IT security of an organization’s data and critical infrastructure should be deemed as a top priority. IAG solutions play a pivotal role in enhancing your organization’s overall security posture by addressing several key areas:
Acces Governance and Compliance
- IAG solutions allow you to get as detailed as you need in regards to your access policies due to the rules and regulations of your organization.
- Through daily/weekly user access analytics and other ad hoc access audits, IAG assists in mitigating high access privileges that may have been granted and retained unchallenged, thereby lowering both information leak and compliance violation vulnerability.
- The automated access certification means that the rights are at least checked and modified periodically, thus avoiding privilege escalation and the enlargement of the adversary’s window of opportunity.
Segregation of Duties (SoD)
- IAG solutions enable the enforcement of Segregation of Duties (SoD) best practices that address conflicts of interest and address risk of fraud and misuse of privileged accounts.
So, when IAG sets and complies with SoD rules, it guarantees that important business processes are kept apart and controlled to prevent persons from having too much access that may result to unlawful actions.
- This decision makes the system more secure, as well as eliminating insider threats or easily identifiable instances of misuse of the data collected.
There is a solution called Privileged Access Management (PAM).
IAG solutions can require Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions to deliver additional safeguards for extremely delicate accounts and actions.
In this way, IAG addresses the problem of shared administrative accounts by managing and monitoring of privileged access centrally, so all the privileged activities are properly logged, audited, and controlled.
These integrations assist organizations in achieving a complete audit trail for the organization and also ensures that there are strong security measures placed on important systems and data.
It is therefore crucial to choose the right IAG solution that can help you to identify security threats and compliance issues early enough, and also create awareness to your employees by making them responsible for managing their access rights.
Applying IAG to Increase the Efficiency of Organization
However, apart from improving security, the applications of IAG solutions do not stop at the mentioned point. The IAM services being offered by IAG can reduce your organizational overhead costs to optimum levels and enhance productivity.
Automated Provisioning and Deprovisioning
- IAG solutions address the high risk of errors in granting and revoking access rights by automatically implementing the correct access rights at the right time.
- IAG can also pull information from your organization’s human resource systems and other authoritative sources to auto-provision accounts, and grant or revoke access when an employee is hired or fired.
- They do this in a way that neutralizes the need for manual action, decreases the amount of time spent on paperwork, and guarantees compliance with your IT policies.
Self-Service Access Requests
What is typically provided through IAG solutions are self-service portals where users can submit requests for certain resources or applications to grant based on roles and responsibilities of a user.
Such requests are automatically sent through defined approval processes to enhance accountability and check point mechanisms while avoiding unnecessary time-consuming hurdles.
Through the provision of a common interface for requesting access, the IAG solutions help to offload the work of IT departments and increase efficiency.
Access Reviews and Reporting should be centralized
IAG solutions ensure that you get a single platform that can be used to conduct access review on a periodic basis, thus giving you an opportunity to remove all the access rights that are not needed.
Advanced reporting solutions give an overview of the usage patterns, policy infringements, and future threats to security and can help make better decisions to maintain and improve the system.
IAG solutions assist you in sustaining a concise and effective access review and reporting process to eliminate operational burdens and meet compliance standards.
Automation, self-service, and centralized governance features inherent in IAG solutions increase operational effectiveness, decrease administrative burden, and promote a healthy and secure organizational environment.
Implementing IAG: Strategies for Today’s Organizations
Successful IAG solution depends on proper planning, execution and continuous governance. To ensure a successful deployment and maximize the benefits of IAG, consider the following best practices:
- Policies and processes in relation to the governance of the organization and its projects must be well defined.
- Develop company specific guidelines when it comes to identity and access management, user provisioning, access request and approval for access, access reinstatement and review, and termination and revocation policies.
- Consult different departments of an organization and involve IT, HR, and legal, as well as compliance to determine the best policies.
- It is necessary to conduct a systematic check of these policies and bring them into conformity with the contemporary requirements of business activities and the development of new and new types of threats.
- Conduct a CARA or a Comprehensive Access Risk Assessment
Step one is to carry out a risk, gap, and opportunity analysis of your organization’s current access management program.
Review user access rights, perform search for possible SoD issues, and, finally, compare the efficiency of the overall access governance framework.
Take the knowledge from this assessment to target the implementation of IAG and improve it according to the needs of the organization.
Make Automation and Integration Power
To get the best out of the IAG solution, ensure that you enhance the automation and integration of this solution.
Your IAG solution should be linked to your current Human Resources management systems, identity provider, and other sources of authoritative data to support user on-boarding and off-boarding.
Make access request, approval and access reviews as more automated to minimize the use of manual effort and thus enhance policy compliance.
Develop Standard Learning Materials and Promote Awareness Programs
Conduct numerous training and raise awareness meetings where employees are informed about correct access management, and their responsibilities concerning the IAG.
Promote Security consciousness and ownership by engaging all the users in the process of access review and promptly reporting any deviation from policy as well as act of security threats.
Training material should be updated periodically to capture any changes in the policy, process or in security practice.
Consider IAG implementation as a lifelong process meaning that after you have deployed your solution and attained your desired level of efficiency, you should not just leave your system to run on auto pilot but instead keep checking on your solution frequently to ensure it is still able to meet the existing organizational needs as well as the new emerging security threats.
Optimize your IAG solution to report and analyze key issues to find out the deviation from policies and benchmarks and to evaluate compliance.
From the current research, the following recommendations were made: The IAG policies, processes, and configurations should be reviewed and updated often, with reference to the industrial best practices and the current regulation authority’s recommendations.
If you execute the above best practices, you are guaranteed a successful implementation of IAG that will transform the security of your organization, operational efficiency, accountability and continuous enhancement of processes.
Conclusion
IAG solutions enable user identity, access entitlements and governance policies through one unified point across your entire IT environment. Through the frequent check of User Access Audit trail, Access Review at regular intervals and implementation of segregation of duty policies IAG reduces the risks of unauthorized access, data leak and non compliance.
