While Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions have been there to help businesses over the past few decades, organizations need to stay up with the evolving access management trends. With remote work, virtually connected teams, and global markets, the access perimeters are no more restricted to only on-premises. Many of the legacy technologies were based on presumptions that may no longer even hold true. Over time, traditional or manual handling of intensive user management tasks not only becomes complicated, resource-intensive, and time-consuming but also poses a critical threat due to the possibility of obsolete policies, human errors, and user access control mistakes.
According to a Forrester report, IT decision-makers who rely on manual Identity and Access Management (IAM) processes often fall prey to data breaches more than those who secure their organizations with automated processes. Yet almost 83% of businesses are struggling around the world due to legacy or obsolete management of access to applications and systems. On the other hand, almost 61% of all data breaches happen due to credentials.
Why does your organization need a modern IAM solution?
Set it and forget it – This is one trap that several organizations fall into where they implement a legacy IAM solution and assuming their data, user accesses, and identity security is taken care of, never bother to review or revisit the controls and policies. However, with the constant change in the business and workspace circumstances, adhering to the IAM legacy prevents organizations from exploring new capabilities and even fails to offer the security that an organization requires.
Below are the common IAM legacy presumptions, some of which failed miserably during the pandemic:
If your organization is looking to overcome these antiquated presumptions, then there are two options. You can either invest in a modern IAM solution created for today’s needs, or you can attempt to modify the legacy system. Although the first alternative is a possibility, it requires a sizable time, effort, and financial investment to succeed. Thus, getting started with a modern IAM solution is a much-favored option. These solutions work on the idea that what is true today might not be true tomorrow.
Characteristics of a modern Access Management and Governance solution
Modern access management solutions solve the challenges of the modern world of work that are introduced by cloud computing, remote work culture, and the need for accessibility from anywhere regardless of its location and type (e.g., laptops and mobiles). Advanced IAM solutions are generally capable of quickly distinguishing between legitimate users and devices and fraudulent or malicious bots without disturbing trustworthy users.
Modern Identity infrastructure is flexible to support multiple options for users and device access in the digital world while still addressing the security part of access management like Identity Governance and other best practices, such as multifactor authentication (MFA), zero-standing privileges, and zero-trust architecture. All privileged accesses are further supported with MFA, and additional security including voice, biometrics, phone-as-a-token, and smart cards. In the decentralized, Hybrid, and multi-cloud environment, modern IAM solutions can utilize dynamic access control, which works as a major component of zero-trust architecture, to balance trust against access risks.
Many organizations seek digital transformation in the Hybrid IT infrastructure, as they need a single solution to manage dynamic identities, access visibility, segregation of duties, role management, attestation, analytics, and reporting while still being compliant and secured. There is a shift from manual operations to more of a strategic function that’s optimized to a business’s objectives. In such complex IT ecosystems, it’s difficult to effectively manage user identities and their access requirements.
With an advanced IGA offering, your organization can track and control user access for both on-premises and cloud-based systems. By implementing the right controls with IGA, organizations can minimize risk and maintain regulatory compliance. In addition, they can automate workflows, manage permissions, stay compliant with reporting, and scale up with future access needs.
To keep up with the rapid growth and modifications within your organization, Automation is necessary. The modern IAM solutions built for the modern workforce automate the end-to-end user identity lifecycle, right from onboarding to offboarding. It allows automating the access management workflows thereby getting employees up to speed on day 1 and increasing overall business productivity by reducing IT and helpdesk burden. Even for the changes in staff, JML workflows can be automated for streamlined processes. Whereas these modifications become very tedious, complex, and time-consuming with legacy systems.
With ready-to-use and bidirectional integrations, modern IAM systems can quickly and easily interact with widely used business technologies and platforms without requiring difficult custom development. This rapid resource adoption empowers organizations with much-needed flexibility, scalability, compliance, and cost savings. By leveraging ERP access control, seamless middleware integrations, directory solutions, and others, your organization can ensure business continuity and take security many notches higher. For organizations with multi-cloud environments, middleware integrations can make it cost-effective to develop and run applications at scale.
Enhanced security is one of the major characteristics of modern IAM solutions. With proactive threat detection mechanisms, complete visibility, and added authentication processes, it becomes easier for organizations to identify excess access, information abuse, or potential attacks. In case of a breach, organizations can track what went wrong or what resources are compromised. This in turn helps in significantly reducing the cost of a breach and taking precautionary measures. With modern solutions in the picture, the compromise between security and user experience has also been eliminated. Intuitive, user-friendly procedures are combined with secure, out-of-band authentication elements in a modern solution.
Skyrocket your Access Management with AccessFlow!
AccessFlow is the answer to all your legacy IAM challenges! It is a modern, converged solution built by industry experts and offers seamless Access Management, Identity Governance & Administration (IGA), and Privileged Access Management (PAM) – all under one roof!
Built on the reliable ServiceNow® Now platform, AccessFlow is an automated, centralized, and compliant access management and governance solution. It is a SOC 1 Type 1 Certified solution and provides customers with added trust and compliance benefits.
Apt for the modern workforce and the new world of work – AccessFlow leverages various automated infrastructure and cloud management functions that do not require any physical presence in offices or data centers. In addition, it comes with all the benefits of a modern solution.
To kickstart your access management journey, request an AccessFlow demo today at information@alcortech.com
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