When employees join an organization, they must be given access to the applications and devices they need. Identity lifecycle management automates this process, reducing risks and inefficiencies.
Identity lifecycle management is a critical component of modern security strategy. Implementing it correctly helps companies reduce the risk of data breaches and improves employee productivity.
Onboarding
Onboarding is an essential part of integrating new employees into your organization. During onboarding, new hires receive training and resources that help them settle into their new roles quickly and efficiently. The experience can significantly impact employee retention, job satisfaction, and productivity.
While onboarding is a great way to get new employees up to speed, it can be tedious and time-consuming without the right identity lifecycle management solution. These solutions eliminate manual, error-prone processes and free up help desk staff to focus on higher-level tasks that promote innovation and growth.
In addition to onboarding, modern identity, and access management (IAM) solutions automate user account creation, modification, and deletion, ensuring consistent experience and round-the-clock security throughout the identity lifecycle. Specifically, these solutions allow users to request access privileges and update account information through self-service portals.
To streamline this process, IAM solutions often connect to HR systems and directory services for reduced redundancies and greater efficiency. These solutions also provide tools for automated approval workflows and centralized monitoring and reporting to help IT, and security teams investigate security incidents and comply with audits.
Access Management
Identity lifecycle management can boost security and productivity across your extended enterprise. You can enforce the principle of least privilege, ensuring that users have access to data only as much as they need for their job.
Typical processes in access management include provisioning, updating, and revoking. For new employees, contractors, and third parties to, ensure they are given access at the appropriate level.
Role-based access control (RBAC) enforces this policy and can help prevent what is known as privilege creep, which occurs when people accumulate privileged accounts that they no longer need. This can lead to various issues, from dormant accounts to cyber breaches.
In addition, you’ll want to implement a robust access management solution that integrates with widely-used authorization-related business systems like Active Directory, Group Policy, and SharePoint. This allows you to track privileged accounts, group memberships, and access rights settings in one place, giving you deeper insight into potential insider threats.
Effective ILM also improves organizational efficiency and productivity, making it easier for employees to get onboarded and perform their roles. This can free up help desk resources for more advanced tasks and make role changes, de-provisioning, and termination of access faster and smoother.
Change Management
Change is something that businesses need to face and manage regularly. Managing change can help an organization remain competitive, improve customer satisfaction, and keep employees engaged and productive.
Whether due to the rise of disruptive technologies, shifting marketplace needs, or changes in how work gets done, change is an inevitable part of the business. But if it’s not handled effectively, the negative effects of change can lead to lost productivity, frustrated employees, and dissatisfied customers.
A successful change management strategy focuses on people, processes, and technology to make critical initiatives easier for everyone involved. A data-informed, adaptive change approach smartly balances risk and speed, allowing organizations to achieve a smoother transition with fewer mistakes.
Before implementing a new process or software system, it is important to ensure that all stakeholders are aware of and on board with the change. Creating a communication plan will give everyone at the company an understanding of the change and how to participate.
This will help reduce resistance and ensure the change is implemented properly. Employees should also be provided with training to help them understand the new processes and systems. They should be able to ask questions and get answers from their manager. They should also be allowed to share their knowledge with other employees. This will also increase their engagement and support of the change.
Audit
Whether your identity management system stores identities in a single location or a mix of systems, it’s important to have a robust auditing strategy. This can help to identify privileged accounts that are not being used appropriately and ensure compliance with security policies.
Auditing also allows companies to track and analyze user activities in real-time, enabling them to understand their environment better, mitigate risk, and protect data. It can also help organizations determine where they are falling short in their security strategies, allowing them to take corrective action before it’s too late.
A good auditing solution will have an archiving feature that helps to keep logs in a secure location for longer periods. This will enable auditors to search and sort through them in a way that makes sense.
The auditing process can also be automated, reducing costs and increasing efficiency for companies that want to streamline their processes. Automated software can handle many of the auditing tasks that used to be done manually, allowing auditors to focus on more valuable work and save hours of their time in the process.
