Cyberattacks come from all sectors, including the cloud tools you use daily.
Managing access to sensitive data and resources has become crucial. One breached account in a business app can lead to significant consequences.
Login credentials are lucrative for cybercriminals. Various online accounts can be a goldmine on the dark web. For example, an email administrator login can fetch between $500 to $140,000.
To protect data, businesses must include access management in their cybersecurity strategy. Otherwise, they could suffer serious financial consequences, not to mention the loss of reputation that comes with a data breach.
For over 25 years, WEBIT Services has helped hundreds of clients build effective IT strategies and security practices.
By reading this article, you will learn six reasons access management has become essential to data security.
Why Identity & Access Management (IAM) Should Be a High Priority in Cybersecurity
1. Mitigating Insider Threats
Insider threats can result from malicious actions or unintentional errors. They can come from employees within an organization or their breached accounts.
IAM solutions enable businesses to install granular access controls and permissions. This ensures that employees have access only to the data necessary for their roles.
By minimizing excessive privileges, organizations can reduce insider threats. This way, if an employee's account is breached, the cybercriminals only have access to the same data as the employee. The rest of the system can be safeguarded.
Access management also provides visibility into user activities. It enables businesses to detect and respond to suspicious behavior in real time.
2. Strengthening Data Protection
Data breaches can have severe consequences for businesses. They can lead to things like:
- Reputational damage
- Financial losses
- Regulatory penalties
- Permanent closure for those who can't recover
By implementing robust access controls, businesses can mitigate risks. They reduce the chance of unauthorized data access. As well as protect their most valuable assets.
Effective access management helps strengthen data protection. It limits access to sensitive information and enforces strong authentication measures.
Multi-factor authentication, encryption, and user authentication limit who can access what in a system.
Access management solutions also enable organizations to track and control data transfers. This helps ensure that data remains secure throughout its lifecycle.
3. Enhancing Regulatory Compliance
Compliance with data privacy laws is a top priority for many organizations.
IAM solutions play a vital role in ensuring regulatory compliance. They provide necessary controls and audit trails. Businesses may be asked to perform security audits by customers or by cyber insurance policies in the event of a breach.
Businesses can prove they comply with regulatory requirements by using IAM.
IAM tools also help companies adopt best practices, such as:
- Role-based access control (RBAC)
- Least privilege principles
- Contextual multi-factor authentication
IAM solutions also help with regular access reviews. They enable organizations to maintain an accurate record of user access and permissions. This is essential for regulatory audits and assessments.
4. Streamlining User Provisioning and Deprovisioning
Managing user accounts and access privileges manually can be a time-consuming process. It's also prone to human error. Just one miskeyed entry can increase the risk of an account breach.
Access management solutions automate user provisioning and de-provisioning. This ensures that employees have appropriate access rights throughout their employment lifecycle.
When an employee joins an organization, access management simplifies the onboarding process. It quickly provisions the necessary user accounts and permissions based on their role.
When an employee leaves the organization, IAM tools ensure prompt de-provisioning of accounts and revoking access rights. This reduces the risks of dormant or unauthorized accounts.
Streamlining user provisioning and de-provisioning enhances security and improves operational efficiency.
5. Enabling Secure Remote Access
Two things have changed the traditional "office" look in the last decade: the rise of remote work and the increasing reliance on cloud services. Because more and more employees are remotely accessing company data, secure remote access is vital for organizations.
IAM solutions provide secure authentication and authorization mechanisms for remote users by enabling them to securely access corporate resources and data.
IAM is there whether employees work from home, travel, or access data via mobile. Access management ensures that they can do so without compromising security.
It includes features like:
- Virtual private networks (VPNs)
- Single sign-on (SSO)
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
These help secure remote access while maintaining corporate data's integrity and confidentiality.
6. Improving Productivity
Using an identity and access management system can boost productivity. Imagine how much time your HR or IT team spends provisioning user accounts. It can take significant time to add all those login credentials and decide on user access permissions in each tool.
IAM systems automate this entire process. Using role-based access protocols, they can immediately assign the right level of access. If an employee leaves, the system can also immediately revoke access. This saves your administrative team considerable time and effort.
Next Steps for Applying Identity & Access Management
Identity and access management can help protect your data by limiting access according to users' roles and responsibilities. Users can only access files appropriate for their specific role.
Identity and access management can also help with the following:
- Mitigating insider threats
- Strengthening data protection
- Enhancing regulatory compliance
- Streamlining user provisioning and de-provisioning
- Enabling secure remote access
- Improving productivity
Talk to your IT provider or internal IT team to learn more about identity and access management tools. They can tell you what tools and practices you have in place or what tools would best meet your needs.
WEBIT Services is passionate about cybersecurity practices and education. It sees knowledge and awareness as the first step in developing effective cybersecurity procedures.
If you are looking for a new IT provider, schedule a free 30-minute consultation to see if WEBIT can help.
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