Identity Governance & Administration (IGA) solutions address the security, compliance, and efficiency challenges faced by organizations in today’s digital world. They deliver centralized policies and automated processes that help lower operational costs, ensure workers have access to the data they need, minimize threats, and boost compliance.

Robust IGA solutions automate labor-intensive processes like provisioning, access certifications, and password management. These identity governance and administration jobs can dramatically reduce operational costs and empower users to request, manage, and review access independently.

Authentication

Authentication is verifying a user’s identity before they are granted access to information resources. This typically means a username and password combination, although more sophisticated authentication methods exist.

Often, authentication is part of the larger Identity and Access Management (IAM) system that governs how users can access systems and data throughout an organization. IAM processes ensure that employees have access to work effectively and efficiently while minimizing security risks.

In addition to the standard login and password, IAM also supports a variety of other authentication factors, such as biometrics or something the user owns. This layered approach to cybersecurity can help reduce the risk of breaches and phishing attacks.

During the authentication process, an IAM system checks a login attempt against an ongoing database of user identities. This database is updated as new employees join the company, their roles change, and their scope expands.

Access Control

Access control is the policies that determine who gets access to an organization’s information and tools. It protects data, tools, and physical locations and ensures the right people can work with what they need to do their jobs.

Identity and access management (IAM) verifies that a user, software, or hardware is who they say they are by comparing their credentials to a database. This enables the enterprise to allocate narrowly constructed permissions based on identities instead of permitting broad-based access via a username and password.

The system can also create new identities for users who require specialized access to the enterprise’s systems or tools. This can be a tiered process, with higher tiers of authentication determining whether the identity in question is authorized for any access on the network and lower tiers that authenticate where the identity should be granted access to specific servers, drives, folders, files, and applications.

Access control systems are critical for maintaining security, especially in digital transformation. They help organizations safeguard their business data, keep track of employee activity on the network, and reduce cyber theft by narrowing down who can access sensitive systems or critical business data.

Access Requests

Access requests are a part of every Identity Management system, allowing users to request privileged access to applications and organizational resources. Typically, these requests are granted after an approval process.

The process is often manual, involving free-text communication and human decision-making. The resulting trace of people, comments and decisions are usually coded into access-related metadata that serves as an accountability mechanism.

Automated access requests reduce the amount of time spent on manual approvals. Managers and resource owners can review requests through a web-based interface.

With smart forms and routing, IT can ensure that each user request is routed differently to reduce bottlenecks. Additionally, approvals are automatically evaluated and assigned to the proper system administrator for a smooth process.

With access requests, you can automate granting privileged access to applications and organizational resources. With this functionality, you can also keep track of permission creep and eliminate outdated access if necessary. Ultimately, these processes can help you meet compliance regulations like the EU’s GDPR and California’s CCPA. Following these guidelines can protect your organization’s reputation and avoid fines.

Certification

Certifications are a third-party assessment of an individual’s skill set, valued in many industries. They are often sought after by employers, who look for professional designations when recruiting and assessing job applicants.

Professional certification is not necessarily required for a job but can help an individual to progress faster and be viewed as valuable by employers. Career development in specialized industries, such as accounting or information technology, is also essential.

For an identity manager, completing a certification can ensure that all users and applications have the appropriate access and permissions. It can also help to identify potential risks in an organization’s access control process and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire process.

Certifying a user’s access to their applications can be helpful for several reasons, including changing a user’s department, role or location. It can also be helpful when a user has had an extended leave of absence. During these times, it is common to find users with excess access, even though they no longer work for the organization.

Reporting

Reporting is a key part of an identity manager’s responsibility. It’s about preparing and presenting information to stakeholders in a way that’s clear, simple, and accessible. It’s also about reducing the complexity of data to its essential elements.

As a result, it’s important to have a reporting layer that’s easy to integrate with your other systems. It should be able to pull data from various sources, including databases, Web services, and RSS feeds.

It should also provide a simple interface that anyone can use, regardless of their technical skill level. It should help you make the best decisions for your organization and users.

The central concept in identity analytics and reporting is often the concept of risk. However, while a risk-based approach is an excellent place to start, more is needed. Fortunately, many other approaches to identity management can supplement the risk-based approach, and they’re often much more effective. For example, they can clean up the data and policies, making them easier to manage and understand or detect issues the risk-based approach may miss.