Identity Security is a holistic solution that aims to secure all identities used within an organization. It recognizes that any identity, be it an IT admin, a remote worker, a third-party vendor, a device, or an application, can gain privileged access under certain circumstances, thus opening up a potential attack path to an organization's most valuable assets. That's why an Identity Security approach, based on privileged access management aims to secure all identities, whether human or machine, at every stage of accessing critical assets.
Importance of Identity Security
The practice of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) increases the likelihood of cyber threats. The attack surface has significantly expanded, allowing attackers to access corporate accounts and cause extensive damage. There has been a rise in cyber crimes, fraud, and intellectual property theft. Identity-driven attacks are particularly challenging to detect, as traditional security tools and processes struggle to differentiate between genuine users and hackers. These security breaches can result in millions of dollars in losses for organizations.
Benefits of Identity Security
- Enabling Access: Identity Security allows for easy and secure access to business apps and resources from any device, location, and at the right time.
- Empowering Employees: Identity Security simplifies access to business resources with single sign-on (SSO) and adaptive multi-factor authentication (MFA). Passwordless authentication makes it more secure and reduces end-user friction.
- Empowering Customers: Identity Security provides easy and secure access to business applications, helping to keep customers loyal. Developers can create secure identity-driven experiences right from the start.
- Enforcing Privilege: Identity Security includes Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions to secure privileged credentials and secrets on-premises, in the cloud, and everywhere.
- Securing Privileged Access: PAM manages privileged accounts and credentials, isolates, and monitors privileged sessions, and remediates risky activities across environments.
- Securing Vendor Remote Access: PAM secures remote vendor access to IT assets without requiring VPNs, agents, or passwords.
- Securing DevOps: Identity Security enables secure access to sensitive resources by applications and automation tools.
Key Steps of Identity Security
- Authentication: It is the process of verifying the identity of a user. One common method used is multi-factor authentication (MFA), which usually requires credentials such as a username and password. Organizations may also opt for single-sign-on (SSO) or passwordless authentication, using tokens, biometrics, email, or SMS, for example.
- Authorization: It is the process of granting permissions or access to users, devices, or entities on a strictly need-to-know basis. Enforcing the principle of least privilege (PoLP) is vital in limiting access to only what is necessary.
- Access: It is granted to users who have passed authentication and authorization processes based on their privileges. Privileged access management (PAM) and PoLP help prevent access to privileges from falling into the hands of adversaries or inside attackers.
- Audit: Auditing is the process of continuous monitoring of activities taking place on the network. It can detect abnormal behavior and track access to specific accounts, privileges, and resources.
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