What Is Identity and Access Management (IAM)? 

Identity and Access Management is an essential part of overall IT security that manages digital identities and user access to data, systems, and resources within an organization. IAM security includes the policies, programs, and technologies that reduce identity-related access risks within a business.

Gartner defines IAM simply as ‘the discipline that enables the right individuals to access the right resources at the right times for the right reasons.’ As a critical security function, IAM enables companies to not just respond to changes in the business, but also become more proactive in anticipating identity-related access risks that result from the dynamic business environment.

According to the 2020 Identity and Access Management Report, 90 percent of organizations confirm that IAM is very to extremely important as part of their cybersecurity and risk management posture—up four percent from 2019. This confirmation of IAM as a strategic imperative means it should be viewed from a cross-functional perspective of stakeholders—from business leaders, IT and security teams, customers, auditors, employees, contractors and non-employees, vendors and partners.

A solid approach to IAM enables organizations to mitigate risks, improve compliance, and increase efficiencies across the enterprise. That’s why overseeing appropriate access through the right IAM framework goes a long way towards bolstering risk management within the organization and closing the gap on overall IAM risk.

What Is Identity Governance and Administration (IGA)?

IGA is both a policy framework and set of security solutions that enable organizations to more effectively mitigate identity-related access risks within their business. IGA automates the creation, management, and certification of user accounts, roles, and access rights for individual users in an organization. This means companies can streamline user provisioning, password management, policy management, access governance, and access reviews within their business.

Another definition of identity governance, as defined by Tech Target, is the ‘policy-based centralized orchestration of user identity management and access control,’ indicating the function ‘helps support enterprise IT security and regulatory compliance.’ Put into simpler terms, IGA means leveraging the most intelligent and efficient path to mitigating identity risk in your business. 

Considered part of Identity and Access Management, Identity Governance and Administration offers organizations increased visibility into the identities and access privileges of users, so they can better manage who has access to what systems, and when. Identity governance empowers organizations to do more with less, enhance their security posture, and meet increasing auditor demands, while also scaling for growth.

What Does IGA Do?

Identity Governance and Administration provides automation capabilities for creating and managing user accounts, roles, and access rights for individual users within organizations. With IGA, organizations can easily leverage a more secure, strategic, and streamlined approach for provisioning and deprovisioning, user lifecycle management, compliance and governance, password management, access certifications, and risk insight. Identity governance also enables companies to:

• Improve organizational security and reduce identity-related risk
• Leverage role-based access for intelligent, visible role management
• Streamline certification processes to comply with increasing auditor demands
• Ensure compliance with government regulations and industry standards
• Boost operational efficiencies to empower the business to do more with less

How Do IGA and IAM Differ From Each Other?

While they may sound very similar, Gartner takes care to distinguish between the function, extent, and purpose of IGA and IAM. Specifically, it notes, ‘IGA differs from IAM in that it allows organizations to not only define and enforce IAM policy, but also connect IAM functions to meet audit and compliance requirements.’ This means Identity Governance and Administration has the distinct purpose to ensure IAM policies are connected and enforced.

What Is Privileged Access Management (PAM)?

Now that we’ve examined IAM and IGA, let’s take a look at Privileged Access Management. PAM is considered a critical security control that enables organizations to simplify how they define, monitor, and manage privileged access across their IT systems, applications, and infrastructure.

Because administrator accounts have elevated privileges that can access valuable data and execute applications or transactions—often with little or no tracking control—it can be very difficult to manage privileged accounts. PAM solutions centralize management of administrator profiles and ensure least privilege access is enforced to give users only the access they need.

Of each of the three areas discussed here, PAM is the most narrowly defined, but has the significant responsibility for mitigating identity-related access risks related to privileged access. While IAM and IGA focus on wider levels of user access for resources, systems, and applications across the organization, PAM primarily defines and controls access for privileged users. Let’s take a look now at some types of privileged accounts.