*By Renan Ramos
Identity and access management (Identity and Access Management (IAM), is one of the crucial information security resources for large companies and corporations, it deals directly with information technology resources, which with technological advances are constantly introduced in the corporate world.
A small example of the importance of this issue was that during the pandemic (COVID 19) that affected the whole world, everyone needed to adapt to the remote work routine, there was a need to adapt activities so that they could occur remotely, influencing the routine of millions of people and companies globally. In this situation, the importance of identity and access management gained even more attention, dealing directly with remote access, data manipulation and programs necessary to perform the functions intended for each employee.
In this way, what made it easier for certain employees to perform their duties working from home, for others it also brought several risks that directly affected organizations, such as when there is no proper precaution and awareness with preventive measures against data disclosure and confidential information and the significant increase in crimes linked to theft of access credentials and identity.
BENEFITS OF IDENTITY AND ACCESS MANAGEMENT
There are some advantages of identity and access management that aims to establish and prevent fraud and unauthorized access by users, such as:
- Limit operational risks by ensuring users have access independently. Management enables the automation of processes, preventing assets from being accessed by unauthorized persons;
- Access management goes hand in hand with information security policies, aiming to ensure that the company's data and information are flawless and guarantee total integrity when necessary to access them;
- Authorize a user to have read permission to a certain file on the network or change values within a spreadsheet. Permissions can also be more robust, such as privileged access to a particular application, which is extremely confidential within the organization;
- Two-factor authentication, being a system that establishes a form of authenticity on the user, aiming to guarantee access to a certain resource, validating information about the user, in this way, access to a certain application will be validated or even prevented;
- A method of confirming the user's assigned identity, using a certain combination of something he knows (password or PIN) and a second different factor.
BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS FOR ACCESS CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT
The business owner is the person responsible for the processes and procedures of the business activities, establishing and defining who can and cannot have access to the assets. A risk analysis should be used to determine how strict these access controls should be.
Some examples should be analyzed to define the controls:
- Access to network and services (files and documents) on the network;
- Access to business applications;
- Access to IT equipment;
- Access to information;
- manipulation of data and information;
- Disk Encryption.
RESPONSIBILITY OF USERS
For access management to be successful, it is extremely important that employees (users) know what their responsibilities and obligations are, in order to keep all assets safe and preserved. Users have an obligation to keep their information secure, keeping it and not sharing their access credentials with anyone.
CONCLUSION
Access and identity management brings some advantages for companies, being possible to implement effective security controls, execute the guidelines established in policies, raising the level of compliance and implementing more robust controls, it will consecutively increase productivity and enable a safer work , reducing IT costs, standardizing activities related to management issues and controlling business processes.
About Safeway:
THE SAFEWAY is an Information Security company, recognized by its clients for offering high added value solutions, through Information Security projects that fully meet the needs of the business. In these years of experience, we have proudly accumulated several successful projects that have given us credibility and prominence among our clients, which largely constitute the 100 largest companies in Brazil.
Today through more than 23 strategic partnerships with global manufacturers and our SOC, SAFEWAY is considered a one stop shopping with the best technology solutions, processes and people.
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