Increasingly, identity management solutions leverage advanced technologies, such as mobile credentialing, AI and cloud, to offer various benefits for users. This article takes a closer look.
Identity management has now become a major concept amid a rise in identify theft and related incidents. Increasingly, identity management solutions leverage advanced technologies, such as mobile credentialing, AI and cloud, to offer various benefits for users. This article takes a closer look.
Mobile credentialing
Today’s identity management solutions seek to strike a balance between security and convenience. Mobile credentialing is a good example. Traditional “what you have” solutions, for example keycards or fobs, may be easily lost, stolen or copied. Mobile devices, on the other hand, are secure and conveniently carried by the user most of the time.
“According to the HID 2022 State of Physical Access Control Report, 66 percent of users have already upgraded to mobile readers or plan to do so, while 41 percent of respondents say that mobile access would be one of the top features required in a new access control system,” said Ramesh Songukrishnasamy, Senior VP and CTO at HID. “By using mobile phones and devices to house digital credentials, organizations can replace or supplement traditional access cards. Even more, digital credentials have an extra layer of security via best-in-class data encryption, while also offering users a familiar, seamless experience.”
AI
AI is no longer just a buzzword and can be applied in a range of fields, including identity management. “For identity management, AI helps in predictive analysis, identifying potential breaches, and offering proactive solutions. Our solutions leverage AI for intelligent threat detection and response, including natural language processing and generative AI models for SOC insights,” said Willem Ryan, Senior VP for Marketing and Communications at AlertEnterprise.
In particular, AI can do a good job detecting abnormal or irregular user behavior within an organization, and issue an alarm accordingly. “AI can be incorporated in identity and access management systems to help detect anomalies in user behaviors and pinpoint potential threats before they cause damages. AI is also useful in upping the ante on providing secure authentication, through performing behavioral analysis for example, to establish a profile of normal activity patterns. Should there be any deviation from the normal patterns, AI can flag it and prompt for further actions,” Songukrishnasamy said.
“The increased use of AI in identity management solutions provides a necessary check and balance approach to technology and an enhancement to all the rules and policies vendors have been offering for years. In the simplest of terms, it is able to identify inconsistencies in user behavior, access provisioning, inappropriate privileges, and other identity-based risks that a simple rules engine cannot accomplish across diverse implementations. In addition, it can learn behavior beyond just one organization when properly implemented in the cloud and identity active identity threats when patterns emerge across dissimilar organizations,” said Morey Haber, Chief Security Officer at BeyondTrust.
Cloud
Nowadays, it seems everything can be cloud-based. These include video surveillance (
VSaaS) and access control (
ACaaS). Now identity management has become increasingly cloud-based, too.
“Cloud-based identity management brings many benefits such as scalability, flexibility, cost-effectiveness and integration across cloud services and cloud service providers. This is often referred to as Identity as a Service (IDaaS),” said Ketan Pyne, Identity and Access Management Expert at Thales. “An essential component of identity management is identity governance and administration (IGA), and cloud-based identity management solutions bring about the possibility of decentralized identities that allow users to reuse their identities across multiple organizations and applications.”
“Identity management that is cloud-based is the future. Remote work, digital transformations, web3, and the ROI associated with not maintaining complex identity management solutions on premise is why identity management in the cloud will succeed and is the future for all organizations,” Haber said.
“It is important to note however,” he added, “that some components and technology will most likely never move to the cloud and will need to be managed from the cloud versus cloud to cloud. This is typically true in manufacturing, banking, governments, etc. where highly sensitive workflows will be required to stay air gapped. Once managed from the cloud however, the simplicity, management, and cost savings the cloud provides can help make identity management from the cloud the standard just like social media and streaming services. After all our identities due exist almost everywhere.”
Final word
Identity management has evolved and advanced over the years. Users can now prove who they say they are via a range of solutions, from
multifactor authentication to mobile credentialing, while cloud and AI make identity management even more effective and manageable. With these advances, we can expect identity management to see increased demand and adoption, making it a vital component in all types of end user organizations.