From our previous blog post on Zero Trust & IGA, a question was asked on sharing views about how an organization can achieve better results with privilege access management. With changing mindset towards security and “trust no one” principles of zero trust, an organization is best served when privilege access management is part of the Identity Governance (IGA) roadmap.
IGA and Privilege Access
Today’s organizations of all sizes implement IGA to achieve tactical or strategic objectives to mature their overall security posture. The drivers for the IGA program could be compliance, cost reduction, or technology modernization. Whatever the driver(s) is/are, it is important for organizations to think beyond the pressing needs. Specifically, from a privilege access viewpoint. We have come across several scenarios where IGA based implementation is responsible for enterprise user lifecycle management and periodic access reviews. Management is well complacent as they have achieved the program goals of compliance, operational efficiencies, and risk reduction, etc. Still, they fail external audit or worst a breach. Why? Often times, due to technological hurdles, complexities, organizational politics, or simply a prioritization misalignment, privilege access and its governance is managed by its own respective team’s vs part of the IGA program. That’s a major gap.
The Risks
An insider threat was ever present. To counter this threat, the industry has come a long way. In today’s time, no organization can ignore threats posed by both human and non-human accounts that they rely on, among other, the privilege accounts. Ironically, while human accounts and some service accounts do get inventory and governance, the majority of organizations face challenges in keeping their privilege access under control.
The risk related to privilege access include: users having stale privilege access (i.e. access that is no longer relevant), orphan access, terminated users still having active application level privilege access, over access, inability to remove access on timely fashion, manual errors due to lack of automation, lack of periodic standardize access certification, inability of effective Segregation Of Duties (SOD), and biggest of all, not knowing who has access to higher privileges and what someone is doing. Having a privilege access management tool is a good start, but in our opinion and observation, when such tools exist in silo with its own processes and manual/semi-manual efforts, the risk cannot be eliminated.
Benefits of Unified Vision
The true value and benefits of both IGA and privilege access management & governance could be achieved by keeping privilege access as an integral use case of a successful IGA program. Today’s modern IGA solutions provide relative ease of integrating commercial privilege access management (PAM) solutions, and also have ability to integrate with custom solution. Combined with good processes and organizational practices, the following benefits can be realized:
Know users with privilege access
Use combination of automation and IGA capabilities to drive key business decision
Reduce risk by performing periodic access reviews
Avoid and reduce insider threat by timely removal of a user’s access
Use IGA tool capabilities to provide Just in Time (JIT) and Just Enough Administration
Stay compliant with regulatory and internal obligations
Move towards practicing zero trust principles
Organizations greatly benefit by putting together a program that keeps the larger picture in perspective. A program that keeps risk, automation, better utilization of existing tools and effective process as part of planning results in a win-win balance between business priorities without compromising risk.
About CredenceIA Consulting
CredenceIA Consulting brings over 20 years of experience working with organizations of all sizes and complexities. This allow CredenceIA Consulting advisors to get the best value and outcome within time and budget. CredenceIA Consulting provides advisory and implementation solutions. We have a successful track record of IAM implementations over last two decades. CredenceIA Consulting has one of the best IAM & IGA experienced team with robust project planning, execution and management expertise.
CredenceIA Consulting’s all-encompassing tailored solutions from advisory, implementation, and US based L2/L3 managed services allow CISOs and their teams to focus where the attention is necessary.
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