Identity governance frameworks help IT administrators make fast decisions about access by automating processes, improving user experiences, and highlighting insights. A good governance framework also offers centralized provisioning of users across different networks, systems, and services. You can’t give everyone full access to all your IT systems at work – that would be disastrous. That’s why it’s essential to implement identity governance.
Security
An identity governance framework helps you implement strict controls limiting user access to data, eliminating the risk of breaches and data leaks. It allows you to align with regulations like GDPR and HIPAA by establishing security measures that reduce cyber risk while protecting confidential information. Managing user identities and their privileges across disparate systems can be complex, especially for large organizations. A centralized identity governance framework makes it easier to manage these processes by creating automated workflows that streamline onboarding, offboarding, and modifying user roles. This minimizes the workload on IT administrators and improves overall security by reducing human error. In addition, an identity governance program can help you meet cybersecurity requirements by enabling you to implement tools like single sign-on and password managers that reduce the number of usernames and passwords that users have to remember. These features also prevent users from using weak passwords that could be compromised by hackers, further improving your security levels.
By implementing role management, an identity governance framework can simplify the access review and certification process by grouping access privileges into “roles” predefined and preapproved by IT. This makes it easier to identify abnormal access, which is essential because the more entitlements a user has, the larger the attack surface for threat actors.
Compliance
As security threats increase sophistication and scale, organizations must institute strong controls. Identity governance effectively manages access, reduces data breach risk, and complies with industry regulations. It also improves operational efficiency and provides a centralized view of user access. The goal is to provide users with the access they need to do their jobs, but no more. The convergence of access levels to this point is crucial, and standard workflows, analytics, and intelligence are provided by an established identity governance framework, which also makes “entitlement right-sizing” a logical course of events. Comprehensive IGA solutions are built to link people, applications, devices, and data to help organizations meet their security, compliance, and efficiency needs. This includes automatically analyzing and reporting security-related data to support continuous monitoring, improve oversight, and eliminate human latency.
Additionally, IGA solutions that are integrated with the rest of your IT security systems will be able to alert you if a breach occurs across multiple systems rather than relying on one system’s local defenses. Also, with the help of managed IT providers, this will enable you to close the gap in your overall IT security stance and ensure that you won’t have holes that attackers can exploit. This is especially important for companies with regulated industries, such as financial services, where the threat of a data breach can be extremely costly.
Regulatory Requirements
In identity governance, an essential requirement is to keep up with regulatory compliance standards. This is why a robust, well-established governance framework can be valuable for businesses. It can help ensure that users have only the minimum access privileges to perform their job and that no one is given more than they need, reducing an organization’s attack surface if a system gets infiltrated by threat actors. Another aspect of a strong identity governance program is monitoring all the systems, applications, and services users can access and quickly identifying and addressing any potential security risks or compliance violations. This is often achieved by integrating an identity governance platform with all the different systems, making it easy to detect anomalous behavior and bring it to the attention of IT administrators. Finally, a practical identity governance framework can enhance operational efficiency by ensuring that only the right people can access the business’s most critical systems and resources. This helps reduce risk and improves an organization’s ability to meet compliance standards, such as separation of duties requirements, a crucial auditing element. Understanding the differences between Identity Management (IDM) and Identity Governance (IG) is essential. IDM responds to immediate access needs, while IG takes a proactive approach that provides access efficiency and security by leveraging policies.
Operational Efficiency
Ensure access to critical systems is controlled and efficient with a governance framework. Just like we set restrictions on our home streaming services to prevent our younger family members from watching PG-13 and unsuitable content, organizations need to have controls to stop employees from unauthorized access to critical IT systems and data. Identity governance efficiently controls user access and ensures only authorized users can view, use, or manipulate data. It also helps companies comply with regulatory standards and requirements such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) for healthcare facilities and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards for payment systems. An identity governance framework establishes policies and procedures that align with these privacy regulations, ensuring businesses operate within the strictest guidelines. A good identity governance framework will help streamline IT operations and improve efficiency by reducing IT admins’ time to grant, alter, or revoke access manually. Integrating various systems and applications allows a governance program to synchronize user identity information automatically to reduce time spent on manual processes. It will also be able to detect anomalous or suspicious behavior and alert managers so they can take the appropriate action.
