Identity Governance: Right People, Right Access, Right Time
Enterprise companies are increasing spending on software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools to enhance employee productivity and drive digital transformation projects. In doing so, IT teams are facing new challenges to ensure the right level of access to the right people at the right time. This results in headaches for CIOs and CISOs who want to ensure organizations have the appropriate security posture while balancing other priorities. In fact, this permission sprawl for employees and extended workforce members across cloud and on-premises systems significantly increases the risk of security breaches. According to Verizon’s Data Breach Report, 82% of breaches involved a human factor such as the use of stolen credentials, phishing and misuse, among other errors. Modern identity governance solutions can ensure only the right users have the right level of access to the right systems, all to deliver better security outcomes and ensure companies pass required compliance audits.
The Importance of Identity Governance
Identity governance is not optional but rather is an essential business process. It addresses Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) compliance and other regulations to keep data secure, all while ensuring individuals at any level or app in the system have the access they need. Currently, the average business employee uses almost 89 applications for personal and professional use. Multiply that by hundreds of employees and it’s easy for organizations to use thousands of apps and vast amounts of data on a daily basis. Managing these identities and apps demands a dedicated strategy to ensure those processes are being followed with adequate visibility for IT teams, leaders, and auditors to see who has access to what, when, and how they obtained permissions. Identity governance takes identity and access management systems to the next level by enabling organizations to define, enforce, review, audit and map the overall strategy for compliance requirements and reporting.
Best Practices for Developing an Identity Governance Strategy
Identity governance is not an on-and-off switch. Instead, it is an ongoing strategic effort that demands a different approach from the traditional, siloed access solutions of the past to tackle the modern security challenges in today’s world. When implementing an identity governance solution, it’s vital to identify which features will align identity solutions with achievable goals. Keep in mind the following best practices:
● Consider a unified identity architecture when implementing an identity governance strategy. It’s typical for companies to have standalone identity and access management (IAM) and identity governance solutions. Disconnected from systems such as Active Directory or other IAM solutions, these various technologies did not integrate effectively or efficiently. Moving forward, it’s important for organizations to consider implementing solutions where IAM systems are well integrated and supported by application programming interfaces (APIs), enabling applications to readily share data among themselves, preferably in a single platform with a centralized dashboard. According to the 2022 APWG report, 36% of the organizations surveyed reported that inadequately managed privileges resulted in a breach. A unified approach can drive improved and advanced security outcomes over the traditional siloed approach where solutions are applied one at a time, leading to blind spots or security risks.
● Seek out solutions that require less maintenance and deliver faster time-to-value. If an identity governance solution is difficult to deploy, takes a long time to implement or frequently experiences issues, it becomes an uphill battle to derive value from the system. Consider identity solutions that have more out-of-the-box connectors to known applications, are managed in the cloud, and require less on-the-ground deployment or maintenance.
● Implement identity governance solutions that offer a seamless and engaging customer experience. Typically, any identity governance system offers extensive governance capabilities such as access requests, certifications and visibility over who has access to what systems. The overall governance process is more effective when these requests, certifications and capabilities have a seamless, user-friendly experience to support employees’ willingness to participate in the governance process. These user-centric features can include integration with familiar interfaces, such as requesting access through popular chat applications like Slack or Microsoft Teams. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are making significant impacts in improving user experience. These AI-augmented tools can speed up filing and responding to access requests, map user movement through an application or detect breaches by tracking and responding to certain triggers. They even can extend to offering recommended actions so it’s easier for employees to make decisions regarding security and identity access. By ensuring users have the least privileges necessary, it also becomes a more seamless part of employees’ application use, improving overall identity governance by reducing identity sprawl and associated risks.
● Ensure identity governance systems provide the right level of visibility about who has access to what. It is critical for systems to have the appropriate reporting infrastructure or architecture to provide IT teams with the data they need about who has access to what, when, where and how. The ability to retrieve this data is important for internal decision-making, benchmarking and security improvements. Without a clear picture of the current state of access and identity across an organization and its applications, it’s impossible for leadership and IT to make informed decisions that shape a successful management strategy that addresses the changing needs of an ever-evolving digital landscape.
Effective Identity Governance is Omnipresent
When businesses take a strategic approach to identity governance that considers every touchpoint within the organization, it results in a constant awareness of user privileges across the vast ecosystem of an organization’s applications and resources. It starts users with the least privileges and then expands from there to drive the right security outcomes. Identity governance, by definition, means identity and access policies remain central to all business activities rather than a knee-jerk reaction for immediate risks or compliance. A strategic approach that considers each of these elements will drive continued innovation helping businesses of all shapes and sizes to achieve a strong security posture accessibly and affordably in today’s ongoing digitally transformed marketplace.
