Identity Access Management (IAM) is a crucial component of a business's overall cybersecurity and data protection strategy. IAM is the backbone of how companies oversee, maintain, and secure digital identities and the systems, data, and applications those identities can access. Effective and comprehensive identity and access management solutions help organizations of all sizes and industries secure and protect their business infrastructure and assets.

Identity and access management has several components:

Governance: Identity governance involves managing digital users and their access throughout their entire life cycle with your infrastructure and assets. IAM solutions help simplify the task by centralizing these functions.

Password management: This component governs policies, technologies, and processes for secure password generation, storage, and enforcement protocols.

Role-based access control: RBAC is an approach for restricting authorized system and data access based on a user's job title. It often accompanies the principle of least privilege — allowing access to only what a user needs for the tasks they carry out.

Segregation of duties: SoD helps companies manage cybersecurity risk by dividing tasks across multiple departments or users so that no single team or user controls an entire process.

Provisioning and deprovisioning protocols: This component governs user access by ensuring the correct permissions are present when needed and revoking credentials once they're no longer necessary.

Implementing robust IAM solutions poses several challenges for cybersecurity professionals.

Complex and fragmented IT environments

Modern business doesn't take place within the traditional on-site network boundaries anymore, as organizations have adopted new work habits and technologies. Hybrid and cloud-based environments, remote employees, and bring-your-own-device policies are now the norm.

As organizations increasingly rely on and implement these tools and approaches, managing identities across diverse platforms and endpoints becomes more complex. Visibility gaps and expanded attack surfaces exist, further increasing complexity and reinforcing the need for comprehensive IAM solutions.

A frequently evolving threat landscape

Threat actors are becoming more sophisticated with their attack techniques. Data leaks, password reuse, and credential harvesting — like phishing — are increasingly exposing more legitimate access credentials. Thread hijacking is another advanced technique that allows adversaries to breach networks by inserting themselves into legitimate routine communications.

Identity access management software is essential in protecting against these evolving threats, but businesses must go beyond a set-it-and-forget-it approach. To maximize security, regularly improving and continuously updating identity security strategies is critical.

Regulatory compliance

Following various data protection regulations is nonnegotiable. While adhering to the laws is complicated for any organization, businesses that operate cross-jurisdictionally face further complexity. National and international organizations navigate complex regulatory landscapes between frameworks like the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California's Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) and Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). Infractions result in considerable fines and penalties, and consumers may also have legal grounds to bring their own civil actions against companies that violate the rules.

IAM solutions can help businesses continually monitor and assess their security strategies to remain compliant. Yet, challenges remain since the process is resource-intensive and complex. Organizations must carefully consider the capabilities of the identity and access management tools they invest in to ensure data protection that can adapt as needs and laws change.

Integration with existing tools

IT teams and cybersecurity professionals face a substantial challenge in seamlessly integrating their IAM software with existing infrastructure. A lack of full integration can lead to blind spots and security gaps. For example, it may result in limited visibility and an inability to connect an account takeover to a broader incident.

Additionally, it can be challenging to ensure that the identity access and management tools implemented can scale as the organization grows and new technologies and users come aboard. Without careful selection, existing IAM solutions incapable of scaling may compromise performance or security, creating another level of difficulty.

User experience and budget considerations

As with any new technology introduction, businesses must consider the impact on end users. Balancing easy access for legitimate users with a strong security posture grows even more complex in larger organizations with varied and diverse user roles. Solutions that generate extra difficulty or frustration will face adoption challenges. Users may also seek ways to bypass them, posing increased risks and negating the value of an IAM strategy. Additionally, implementing and maintaining robust identity and access management services and solutions can create budgetary challenges for many businesses.

Implementing and managing IAM is complex, and traditional tools and approaches have several limitations to their effectiveness in dynamic IT environments. They often face regulatory and compliance pressures and scalability issues. Amid rapid technological changes and evolving threat sophistication, existing IAM methods and solutions struggle to keep pace.

The result is a fragmented IAM landscape, where current tools and approaches typically address only specific aspects of IAM. This inability to provide comprehensive protection against threats creates multiple integration challenges, security gaps, and blind spots.

For example, consider Single Sign On (SSO) and Multifactor Authentication (MFA) — common approaches to strengthen an organization's IAM security posture. These solutions have a narrow scope since they're focused solely on the point of entry. SSO and MFA can make sure that only the right person gets in, but they lack the capacity to monitor potential malicious activity after authentication.

As a result, these approaches cannot detect threats like lateral network movement or unauthorized data access by insiders. Additionally, adversaries can trick these systems using sophisticated techniques like phishing attacks and social engineering, where they gain access by impersonating legitimate users.

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) and Active Directory (AD) management have similar limitations. CASB emphasizes policy enforcement, meaning the tool cannot track users across various cloud-based applications or within networks. AD management is generally restricted exclusively to the local environment, so the approach often doesn't integrate with cloud-based services to protect IAM.

Darktrace / IDENTITY is a comprehensive IAM solution built specifically for the demands of modern IT environments.

We take a holistic approach to IAM, empowering you to proactively manage your risks based on your unique infrastructure and tech stack. Darktrace / IDENTITY leverages Self-Learning AI technology to detect and stop threats across traditional on-premise networks and cloud-based applications.

Our technology learns the patterns and behaviors normal for your users and environment so it can quickly recognize and respond to irregularities to mitigate risks. With integrated identity protection, contextual threat detection, and autonomous response, Darktrace / IDENTITY closes the security gaps other IAM tools leave behind.

Darktrace has been the pioneer in AI-powered cybersecurity since 2013. Our ground-breaking innovations help over 10,000 businesses in 110 countries protect their digital environments with comprehensive, intelligent solutions.

Learn more about IAM and Darktrace / IDENTITY by downloading our solution brief or exploring the topic on our blog.