The growing and shifting digital information ecosystem has become essential for enterprises to reach their objectives and manage their operations within the digital world. Organizations demand vital programs to protect their critical data and network resources from cyber threats. Moreover, the shift and dynamic flow in business ethics and adaptation of remote work has created new threats for organizations. A framework such as Zero Trust is designed to counter these new threats – where we see an embrace of “Identity” as a crucial parameter.
Identity is critical for any business, especially for Chief Information Officers or Security Officers. Organizations need to know who and what has access to their systems and whether their access is authenticated, authorized, and secured, focusing on their most privileged accounts. As remote work becomes flexible and popular within modern organizations, cyber threats have also seen a surge (credential misuse, ransomware, etc.). Unauthorized access to your organization’s resources creates an ultimate risk of corrupting, exposing sensitive or valuable data, and exposing the organization to further threats or exploitation.
Systems such as Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Privileged Access Management (PAM) are greatly emphasized and embraced based on their capabilities. PAM systems enable identifying privileged entitlements, terminating privileged user account access, and monitoring user access. In contrast, IAM enables auto-provision of new privileged accounts and allows users to request privileged accounts. Both IAM and PAM hold greater capabilities. However, the integration of the two creates effective management of privileged and non-privileged user access, request, and remediation.
This hybrid approach, designed for the secure ecosystem, provides a key role in governing organizations’ resources. Authorized access is required to contain permissions obtained from allocated responsibilities. If employees leave or go on vacation, their access rights are handled appropriately. Moreover, operator access rights contain mechanical combinations to define access across different resources.
Such a process allows for easier onboarding/offboarding processes and increases productivity levels as the organization contains better control and understanding of access rights and the reason why these access rights are implemented to the specific user or device.
The integrated method is ideal for identity protection and access control. Using authentication tools and access control measures. Both systems embrace secure access policies within an organization’s structure and record activity of potential threats, as a result, create a secure digital environment and assist in securing the governance system for any industry as internal privileged users are the main target for attackers. IAM and PAM systems decrease the chances of such accounts being exploited and assist as additional layers of internal security within your infrastructure.
Author: Damian Borkowski– Technical Marketing Specialist
