What is Identity and Access Management Modernization?
Identity and Access Management, or IAM, is the policies and solutions an enterprise has to verify that a user is who they say they are and control what the user can access. Every employee has different responsibility levels and should be privy to different information. IAM ensures that only the right people can access certain aspects of a system and view specific information. This is a crucial component of cybersecurity, but many enterprises still rely on outdated IAM solutions.
Modernizing your IAM systems (IAM Modernization) is an important step for enterprises hoping to adapt to the cybersecurity world of tomorrow. IAM is a crucial component of data protection and vital to long-term business success. IAM modernization is made all the more important in the time of remote work, where systems are more spread out than ever. According to Expert Insights, remote work has increased access to critical business systems by 59%.
Enterprises are eying different things to bring their IAM systems up to date. IAM modernization is improving systems to be more responsive to the cybersecurity needs of today and tomorrow.
How Can IAM Modernization Accelerate Business Results?
Below, we will explore key ways that IAM modernization, through solutions like Okta passwordless authentication, can accelerate your enterprise’s results.
Transition to a Cloud Infrastructure
Many enterprises from around the world have already begun transitioning to a cloud-based infrastructure. Cloud technology is more scalable, agile, and better at storing data than legacy systems, yet there are enterprises that have been hesitant to make the transition due to perceived difficulties.
But if businesses take a step toward IAM modernization by implementing a cloud-based IAM architecture, enterprises can embrace the benefits of a cloud model. Their security will be more flexible and backed up, with a seamless user experience. This is an impactful way for businesses to begin a transition to the cloud without the need to overhaul the entirety of their system.
Reduce Identity Silos
Outdated systems are a significant cause of business bottlenecks. If your system is not flexible and capable of responding to a new digital environment, there will be delays and confusion that impact the results of your enterprise. With many enterprises, the addition of different solutions has led to a large tech stack where employees and partners are responsible for remembering various passwords and logging into different applications. This also poses a problem for IT departments, as they lack a single directory for employees and business partners.
With a cloud-based, modernized IAM system, IT departments can unify identities. This will ensure IT departments can make it easier for users to access resources while also untangling the many identity silos caused by too many legacy systems.
Create a Less Vulnerable Hybrid Model
As we’ve mentioned, companies are spread out due to the nature of modern work. Hybrid work has become the new normal, with millions of people worldwide spending their time split between in-office and at home. Companies now have to account for workers falling victim to hacks at home that impact their enterprise security. This is a significant reason the FBI has reported a 300% increase in cybercrimes since the pandemic began.
Now more than ever, a modernized IAM system is pivotal to the survival of an enterprise. Modern IAM systems unify access management to one cloud-based system rather than several legacy ones. This reduces the risk of data breaches from a spread-out workforce while still making remote access of company resources drastically easier.
A Streamlined Employee Experience
The employee experience is something many enterprises are built on, but an outdated IAM system can hamstring this experience. To understand this, we can look at modern IAM systems. With outdated IAM solutions that use simplistic MFA features, employees would need to remember a password and wait to receive a One-Time Password or verification code sent to their phone and email. This is agitating, can cause long waits, and puts the onus on employees.
But with IAM modernization and solutions like Okta passwordless authentication, the system is streamlined. Employees don’t need to remember passwords, log in to their emails, or have phones handy. The system will use passwordless authentication based on either the device they are using or biometrics and allow them to access whichever part of the system they have permission to use. The result is a straightforward, efficient employee experience.
Automate Time Consuming Tasks to Unburden IT
Legacy systems often require a lot of manual labor from IT staff. Particularly when enterprises are dealing with a huge number of different systems, staff have to spend much of their time working on laborious tasks that are essentially just untangling messes caused by the system. By implementing an identity-first, cloud-based solution, enterprises can automate different tasks and free up time for the IT department to focus on higher-level issues.
With IAM modernization, IT staff don’t have to focus on things like password resets and other manual processes that may not necessarily help bottom lines. These processes are automated, and the identity-first system closes security gaps so IT departments can spend their time elsewhere. This leads to a more efficient enterprise, as IT staff can drive business growth rather than handle time-consuming manual tasks.
Improve Collaboration with Business Partners
Many enterprises utilize a massive network of suppliers and partners. While this is necessary in a world of global supply chains, it can become highly complicated to manage relationships with partners. With outdated systems, keeping track of relationships and managing logins from a broad network can become not just difficult but borderline impossible. IAM modernization is one of the crucial ways that enterprises are streamlining their partner collaborations for better-organized relationships.
Cloud-based identity-first solutions can simplify the login process for customers, suppliers, and partners to access business resources. It can make onboarding and offboarding a more efficient process, with more simplicity for your partners. Most importantly, it helps ensure that the right partners are able to access the right data without there being security gaps that bad actors can exploit.
Okta provides an end-to-end suite for modern identity management. Unicloud is the sole representative of OKTA in Israel. Contact us to try Okta today.
