When business leaders want to give automatic access to various users responsible for IT operations, they need to pay particular attention to security. Thus, they need to implement identity governance and administration (IGA) measures to create and manage digital identities for all involved. IGA systems can help automate workflow for provisioning and deprovisioning users when properly managed. It’s especially useful where users may need to log on from different devices or places, which traditionally makes such access management hard to manage and control.
The Components of IGA
We can break down IGA into its core components:
Identity governance
This describes the various policies and processes that need to be in place to make the system work. These include duties, role management, logging procedures, access reviews, reporting, and analytics.
Identity administration
This component describes account administration, device and user provisioning and deprovisioning, and entitlement management.
What Is the Role of IGA in Identity Security?
IGA has a crucial role to play in identity security by supporting identity and access management (IAM), general IT security, and regulatory compliance. Once identity and access management policies have been put in place, IGA will help to enforce them and ensure that only users with authorized access can gain entry. Business leaders need to pay close attention to IAM to help offset the threat of a data breach, meet increasingly stringent regulations, modernize older infrastructure, and where possible, create a frictionless registration process.
What Can You Use IGA For?
Consider implementing IGA across your organization to help:
- Improve auditing and compliance reporting
- Onboard and offboard employees more efficiently
- Manage access across various IT environments, such as cloud-based applications, on-premise assets, or software as a service
- Improve visibility into entitlements and provisioning
- Reduce overall risk and strengthen your security
What Are the Parts that Make Up an IGA Solution?
IGA solutions can help businesses with the long-term management of user identities. Administrators can do this by using IAM tools alongside IGA in different ways:
- Password management tools (including single sign-on) will help protect an organization from a potential breach by proactively managing password strength. This will discourage users from choosing the same weak password across applications.
- Workflow automation tools make the process of onboarding and offboarding users much simpler. Managers can apportion various access levels based on individual roles and approve users independently before they can access systems and applications.
- Permission management involves streamlining the sometimes lengthy process of review and verification. It can give permissions at the application or user level and automatically provision or deprovision as necessary. These tools can also verify what actions an individual user can take on an application basis.
- Reporting tools can help ensure high levels of compliance with logging, analytics, and reporting functionality. Thus, these companies can remain compliant when it comes to data-focused regulations and industry-specific rules. Crucially, some of these rules can also identify opportunities and risks in pursuit of optimization.
- Streamlined management centralizes policies that are in place for identity management, covering all applications, whether in the cloud or on-premises. This will free up developers to do productive work. They can focus on their specialty, which will help make the organization more efficient and could grow the customer base.
IGA solutions can significantly reduce operational costs when properly rolled out. They can introduce automated processes that need far less engagement from IT admins, which should present space for additional scaling. They can also provide efficient and hurdle-free access to resources, which can also promote potential scaling.
In this case, taking on new employees will be easier as the organization grows. Managers can provision and deprovision their access to resources efficiently and en masse rather than deal with each asset or individual one by one. Clearly, there are always security risks when an organization is in growth mode. This is why it’s important to keep these IGA tools active to help improve compliance. Otherwise, compliance is likely to get far harder as the company becomes larger and harder to manage.
What’s the Difference between IGA and IAM?
It’s easy to become confused when thinking about IGA and IAM. In this case, IAM deals with authenticating the identity of users and giving them the authority to access data. It specifically focuses on how systems can verify the users based on relevant criteria, from biometrics to passwords or multifactor authentication. Thus, the authorization process details how administrators can control individual access to apps.
IGA covers the various mechanisms within IAM that relate to process and enforcement. It will include any policies the firm must put in place to monitor security through its information systems. It can also address regulations, legal challenges, business processes, and technological issues. IAM encompasses the tools that leaders will need to help them properly manage their identity governance and administration policies.
Why Your Organization May Need an IGA Solution
There are many reasons why your organization may need an IGA solution. For example:
Meet regulatory obligations
Some government regulations are becoming ever more stringent in certain industries and especially when it comes to health or financial data. If your organization is noncompliant, you could face significant fines or even criminal charges.
Build business
Some government contracts call for strict security compliance within the bidding process. Further, strong IGA solutions can help persuade would-be clients that your organization takes these matters seriously.
Improve efficiency
When you properly implement IGA solutions, you will let key workers focus on their high-value areas instead. You’ll also be able to reduce certain manual processes where the technology allows.
Save money
You’re bound to save time and money when processes are automated and take care of slow, repetitive tasks. This can help you scale the business and improve profits.
Avoid disasters
Don’t underestimate the cost associated with a data breach. According to IBM, the cost of a data breach in Canada could be an average of $520 per record. Try to avoid these breaches with solid IGA solutions.
What Is the Best IGA Solution?
Many organizations in your situation are considering Microsoft’s Azure identity governance solutions. For example, with Microsoft Entra, you can confidently enable smarter, real-time access decisions across all identities.
For further information about Entra, reach out to Softlanding. We are an IT company providing professional and managed IT services. As a Microsoft Solutions partner, we can deploy and implement solutions like Entra across your organization.
Written By:
softlanding
Softlanding is a long-established IT services provider of transformation, professional services and managed IT services that helps organizations boost innovation and drive business value. We are a multi-award-winning Microsoft Gold Partner with 13 Gold Competencies and we use our experience and expertise to be a trusted advisor to our clients. Headquartered in Vancouver, BC, we have staff and offices in Toronto, Montreal and Calgary to serve clients across Canada.
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