What is identity management?
Identity management or ID management is the organizational process by which employees or suppliers are given access to IT systems within a business. It focuses on the identification, and authentication of individuals who require access to software and other IT platforms. It begins with establishing an identity for an individual and then works through a structured workflow to associate user rights and restrictions to this identity. This can be a manual process in small organizations, but as businesses scale up there is an increasing need to automate the process. For large corporates or institutions it can be almost impossible to deliver an effective identity management program without automation.
Identity management platform
There are a number of different ways that identity management can be automated, these include single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA) and session management. New advances in the technology behind single sign-on and multi-factor authentication has led to increasingly sophisticated automated identity management systems which enhance security and deliver a better user experience for the individual. The latest SSO techniques mean that the number of passwords a user needs is significantly decreased and consequently the number of requests for log in credentials is reduced to a minimum. MFA provides an extra level of security by requiring the user to provide two or more verification criteria when requesting access to a given system. This has been shown to deliver increased defence against unauthorized access including cyber attacks.
