Identity and Access Management: How to Get Started

The reasons are there and the rationale is sound: you know that implementing Identity and Access Management (IAM) into your organization needs to happen. Now, you wonder, how?

Every organization is unique in its requirements, processes and policies, so at New Signature we approach the implementation of IAM by analyzing the situation and determining how to proceed. Here is how we would recommend getting started.

Audit your business.

Approach this process as you would a new employee by collecting data about your organization and then answering questions about what you’re trying to achieve. Who are the users that need access to your company’s data? Employees? Contractors? Partners? Customers? How do they work? Remotely or on site or a combination of both? How do you monitor and administer access to data? What kind of data are you required to keep on premises from a regulatory standpoint? Knowing the answers to these questions and having a good understanding of your starting point will help you get a good handle on what needs to change.

Examine and explore your pain points.

Some will likely be obvious, but others may not. For example, your helpdesk may not view the management of user passwords, onboarding and offboarding as a pain point, but if you audit the time they spend on these housekeeping tasks you may discover it to be a source of wasted time. Additionally, consider the time lost for those employees who are being onboarded. How long does it take for them to get set up and ready to work? Lost productivity and wasted time is an example of a pain point that can be easily cured by implementing the right IAM solution.

Take stock of what your employees are using to do their jobs.

You provide your employees with specific sets of tools, but do you know what else they might be using to do their jobs? Are there apps or other tools being used in your ecosystem that might pose unintended risks to your business? Are employees storing your company’s data in private cloud environments or sharing information through unsecured email? Consider a cloud application security review to see what’s being used and how so risks can be identified and analyzed.

Don’t be afraid to change processes.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Unfortunately, many of us can’t always identify a broken process. Developed and implemented during a different time, some of these processes may appear to work just fine, but don’t necessarily account for the needs around today’s technology. Take a good, hard look at your processes and see if they meet your current needs. If not, consider revisiting and revising the way you approach certain things. An example of this could be around passwords and authentication. Rather than rely on employees to change passwords every 30 days for each individual program, application and tool, move to a single sign on solution, which will not only help with usability, but will enable your IT team to keep tighter control over wayward access points.

Some of this is quite simple to do and can be done internally, but working with experts, like those at New Signature, can ensure that you’re investing in the right IAM tools, catch any gaps you may have missed, and help roll out a smooth implementation process.

For more information about IAM and how New Signature can assist your organization in implementing the right IAM solutions, please check out these articles or contact New Signature today.