Identity lifecycle management solutions help organizations to manage and secure users’ digital identities. This involves onboarding and offboarding identities, and provisioning them with the right levels of access permissions.
When a cybercriminal compromises a user’s account, they may be able to access all the sensitive data and files that the account’s legitimate user can access. If a user has more access than they really need for work (also known as being “over-privileged”), this presents itself as a goldmine to cybercriminals. They will have free access to use this data for their own means, or to make the attack more complex and devastating.
Another common way for attackers to gain easy access to corporate data is by hacking into user accounts that are no longer in use – usually because the user has left the organization. As the account isn’t being used, these attacks often go undetected, allowing the attacker to roam your company’s data freely.
Managing users’ identities and access over the course of their time with your company can be cumbersome and difficult. It is difficult to obtain full visibility and insight into which accounts are in use, what resources they need to access, and what resources they actually have access to.
Identity Lifecycle Management (ILM) solutions are software-based identity governance solutions that can help admins oversee and streamline the end-to-end management and security of a user’s identity. ILM solutions assist in user provisioning and de-provisioning, and can provide a framework for the creation, management, and retirement of identities based on role-based access controls and organization policies. These platforms can simplify administrative tasks, improve your security posture, and even help ensure compliance with regulatory standards.
We’ve listed some of the best identity lifecycle management solutions available on the market currently. In each case, we’ll identify some of the solution’s key features, before suggesting the type of organization that they’re best suited to.