Key Features of IAM to Keep In Mind
When looking to implement an IAM system, or assessing how effective your current IAM systems are, here are some key features to keep in mind:
Authentication: The process of verifying a user’s identity, whether it be passwordless via biometrics, a physical token like a swipe card, or a traditional username and password.
Authorization: The process of granting or denying access to resources based on a user’s role and predefined permissions.
User provisioning: The process of creating, updating, and deleting user accounts.
Audit and reporting: The ability to monitor user activity and generate automated reports on user access and activity – this can be taken one step further with modern IAM systems that operate with artificial intelligence. Machine learning models are trained to detect any abnormal behavior on the system, determine a threat level, and report any threats in real-time.
How Exactly Does IAM Improve Security?
Now there’s no denying the benefits a successful IAM system can bring to a company. Let’s go over the three main areas that improve an organization’s security:
Controlling access to resources: The whole concept of IAM is to ensure that only users with authorized access can access certain company resources. This by itself is what makes IAM so beneficial – by reducing the risk of unauthorized access that can lead to security breaches.
Enforcing policies and standards: IAM enables organizations to enforce company-wide policies and standards for user access, password strength, employee training, and other security-related details.
Automating processes: By enabling automation of mundane tasks previously carried out by IT professionals gives them extra time to focus on more pressing matters. Freeing up time to strengthen any weaknesses in the organization’s cybersecurity systems, conducting audits, and fraud testing the systems to identify areas for improvement.
What is CIAM?
Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) is a specialized subset of IAM that focuses on managing the identities and access of customers or external users of your product or service.
CIAM solutions are designed with user experience top of mind, specifically for customer-facing applications, meaning CIAM solutions have a different set of criteria and priorities when compared to IAM solutions that are designed for employees.
Functionality and Benefits of CIAM
Similar to a successful IAM solution, the implementation of a successful CIAM solution has incredible benefits and functionalities that can be brought to your business. Some of which are:
Registration and Profile Management
One key functionality of CIAM is to enable users to create and manage their own profiles. This includes the ability to update personal information, access controls, and security preferences.
Social Identity Integration
One of the main objectives of any CIAM solution is to improve the user experience by making registration, login, and account management as seamless as possible.
Some CIAM solutions integrate with social media platforms, allowing customers to use their social media credentials to log in and access resources.
Personalization and Customization
CIAM solutions have the option to provide personalized experiences for customers, based on their preferences, history, and other factors.
Multi-Factor Authentication
CIAM solutions provide additional layers of security, such as multi-factor authentication and AI-powered adaptive authentication that use contextual behavioral analytics and administratively defined policies to decide what authentication is required under a specific set of circumstances.
Ultimately, protecting customer identities and data to the best of an organization’s ability.
Compliance and Regulatory Requirements
CIAM solutions help organizations comply with data protection regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA. These regulations determine how an organization collects, stores, and shares personal data.
A well-thought-out CIAM solution ensures compliance by providing features such as data subject access requests and consent management.
How Can CIAM Improve Customer Experience?
Given that the main objective of a successful CIAM solution is to improve the user and customer experience as much as possible, here are 3 areas of a CIAM solution that achieve this:
Providing a seamless login experience: CIAM solutions have the option for single sign-on. A feature being utilized very effectively by Google – it allows a user to sign into one application and automatically be signed into a suite of other applications. For example, when a user signs into Gmail, they’re automatically signed into Youtube, Google Drive, and any other G-suite application.
Authentication Options: CIAM solutions allow for a variety of multifactor authentication options, giving users the freedom to decide what authentication methods are most convenient for them.
Streamlining the registration process: CIAM solutions simplify the registration process, allowing customers to quickly and easily create their profiles and access resources. Given that the conversion rate of a website in 2022 was 3.65%, any improvements that can be made to the registration process have the possibility of improving this number greatly.
Overall, CIAM is a crucial technology for organizations that have customer-facing applications and services. By providing a secure and seamless user experience, CIAM solutions can help organizations build customer loyalty, increase engagement, and improve their bottom line.
CIAM vs IAM: Key Differences