What is Identity Governance?

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Have you ever thought about how a company ensures only the right people can access its data and resources?

The solution is Identity Governance (IG), a framework for systematically managing and controlling digital user access within an organization, ensuring security and compliance.

IG assists in identifying, authenticating, and authorizing users during runtime so that access rights are valid according to business requirements and regulatory compliance.

It enables organizations to know who has access to what, pinpoint risks, and prevent unauthorized access. These IG solutions allow companies to define and enforce identity and access management (IAM) policies, thus reducing the risks associated with security non-compliance.

In this article, we will discuss Identity Governance, how it differs from IAM, its core principles, the key components of an IG solution, and the benefits that effective IG can bring. We will also discuss how the right tools can help strengthen your IG strategy.

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What is Identity governance?

Identity Governance (IG) refers to the set of policies, processes, and tools organizations use to manage and control who has access to their technology resources.

It ensures that only the right individuals are granted the appropriate access to systems, data, and applications, in line with regulatory requirements and organizational policies.

IG is a strategic approach to maintaining security and compliance by defining and enforcing access rights within an organization.

It watches over who, what, and why access incidents are happening in your environment (not just when), thereby reducing risk from data breaches and ensuring compliance with regulations such as GDPR or HIPAA.

How IG differs from Identity and Access Management (IAM)?

Identity and Access Management is a framework of business policies, processes, and technologies that facilitates the management of digital identities. It allows IT managers to manage user access to critical information within an organization. IAM systems include:

• Single sign-on (SSO)
• Two-step verification (2SV)
• Multifactor authentication (MFA)
• Privileged Access Management (PAM)

These systems store identity data securely and enforce rules around IG, ensuring only necessary, relevant information is shared.

Moreover, Identity Governance falls under the umbrella of Identity and Access Management. As a subset of IAM, the IG focuses on specific areas such as:

• Managing compliance
• Adhering to risk policies
• Controlling and enforcing policies

While IAM encompasses the overall framework for:

• Creating digital identities
• Administering and validating these identities
• Authorizing access

Furthermore, IG involves policies and oversight mechanisms to ensure identities and access rights comply with regulations and organizational policies, thereby mitigating risks.

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Core Principles of Identity Governance

IG is formed on four key principles: visibility, control, compliance, and automation. These principles are crucial for organizations to manage user access to critical information and comply with security and regulatory standards. Here, we've provided detailed information on the Core Principles of Identity Governance:

Visibility: Firstly, visibility means knowing who has access to what resources are available in the organization. Like an organized library where every book is catalogued and tracked, having proper visibility helps businesses monitor access rights, spot security risks, and make informed decisions.

This transparency reduces unauthorized access and ensures all user access is legitimate.

Control: Secondly, control involves regulating access to sensitive information. Think of it as having secure locks and keys for different rooms in a building.

By using strict policies, organizations can ensure that only authorized users access specific resources, minimizing the risk of data breaches and protecting critical assets.

Compliance: Next, compliance means following regulatory requirements and organizational policies. With laws like GDPR and HIPAA, maintaining compliance is essential. Ensuring access management practices meet these standards helps organizations avoid legal penalties and maintain strong security.

Compliance is like following traffic rules to avoid accidents and keep things running smoothly.

Automation: Lastly, automation streamlines IG processes by reducing manual work. Like an automated factory line, automated systems in Identity governance handle tasks like user provisioning and access reviews more efficiently, leading to quicker responses and fewer errors.

However, visibility, control, compliance, and automation work together to create a secure and efficient IG framework. These principles help organizations manage access, reduce risks, and meet security and compliance goals.

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Key Components of an Identity Governance Strategy

1. User Lifecycle Management

Effectively managing user identities throughout their entire lifecycle, from onboarding to offboarding is crucial. For instance, when new employees join the company, they require access to specific systems and data to carry out their responsibilities.

User lifecycle management ensures that their access is correctly established from the start, and continuously adjusted as they change roles or depart from the organization.

Provisioning Access: Approving access for new users based on their organizational roles and responsibilities. This process creates accounts and assigns relevant access, ensuring new employees, contractors, or partners can quickly get started.

For instance, when Joyce is onboarded as a marketing manager, the provisioning system creates her account and grants her access to the necessary marketing databases and tools.

Updating Access: If Joyce gets promoted to head of marketing, her access needs to change. Updating ensures she can access higher-level reports and sensitive data necessary for her new role.

De-provisioning Access: When an IT contractor, John, completes his assignment, de-provisioning promptly revokes his access to company systems and networks, preventing unauthorized access.

2. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC):

Policies are based on user roles and permissions. RBAC is an access control framework that grants users access based on their organizational role. Setting up permissions according to roles simplifies access management and ensures users only see information relevant to their role.

Defining User Roles: This is the first step in applying RBAC. Defining roles within the organization ensures each role corresponds to specific job functions and duties. As a result, users have only minimal access according to their responsibilities.

For example, a company's role might be defined as "Sales Representative," allowing the employee to access customer data, sales tools, and reporting systems.

Assigning Role-Based Access: After defining roles, access is assigned accordingly. This makes managing and monitoring access rights easier, as changing a user’s access only requires altering their role instead of modifying individual permissions.

For example, when Max joins as a sales representative, she automatically gets access to the CRM and sales analytics. This role-based system ensures she has the right tools for her job without manual intervention.

Limiting Unnecessary Access: RBAC restricts access to the information and systems users need for their specific roles, following the principle of least privilege. This means users have only the necessary rights, reducing the risk of data breaches and security threats.

For example, following the principle of least privilege, only senior management and HR can access employee salary information, ensuring sensitive data does not unintentionally leak.

3. Access Reviews and Certifications:

Verifying user access needs and privileges regularly. Regular access reviews help ensure that users still require the access they have been granted and identify any unnecessary permissions that should be revoked to enhance security.

Conducting Periodic Reviews: Performing access reviews periodically, such as every three or twelve months, ensures that access rights remain valid for the assigned roles. Supervisors and business owners review and attest that users have the right access to their job functions.

For example, the IT department reviews access permissions every six months. They might find that Tom, who moved from sales to finance, still has access to the sales database and needs his permissions adjusted.

Certifying Access: During these reviews, managers certify that their team members have the correct access. If Susan, a project manager, notices an intern with access to project budgets, she can flag and correct this.

Addressing Access Issues: To maintain security, quickly resolve any discrepancies found during audits. For example, IT can promptly revoke those permissions if an audit reveals that an employee retains access from a previous role.

4. Entitlement Management

Defining and managing user access to specific resources. This involves ensuring that users have appropriate access rights and that these rights are consistently reviewed and updated as needed.

Defining Access Rights: Clearly establish which resources each role within the organization can access. For instance, developers need access to code repositories and testing environments, while HR staff require access to employee records.

For example, in a tech company, developers might need access to code repositories and testing environments but not to the HR system. Entitlement management makes sure these boundaries are clearly defined and maintained.

Monitoring Access: Continuously monitor who has access to what resources to identify and address any discrepancies quickly. This helps in detecting unauthorized access and ensures compliance with internal policies.

Adjusting Access Levels: Regularly adjust access levels based on changes in job roles or organizational structure. For example, when a developer is promoted to team lead, they might need additional access to management tools and project oversight systems.

Password Management:

Enforcing strong password policies and multi-factor authentication (MFA). Strong password policies and MFA are essential for securing user accounts and protecting against unauthorized access by requiring robust passwords and additional verification steps.

Enforcing Complex Passwords: Implement policies that require employees to create complex passwords with a mix of letters, numbers, and special characters and mandate password changes every 90 days.

Implementing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): A second layer of authentication, such as a mobile app verification or biometric scan, is required to add an extra layer of security beyond just passwords.

Educating Users: Regularly educate employees about the importance of strong passwords and how to recognize phishing attempts that aim to steal login credentials, ensuring they understand and follow best practices for password security.

Together, these components create a comprehensive strategy for managing user access, ensuring security, and maintaining organizational compliance.

By implementing these Identity Governance practices, enterprises can safeguard their resources, comply with regulations, and reduce the risk of data breaches.

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Benefits of Effective Identity Governance

1. Enhanced Security Posture:

Enhanced Security Posture refers to the improved safeguarding of an organization’s data and systems. It involves comprehensive management and user access monitoring, ensuring strict control over who can view or modify sensitive information.

• Ensures only authorized individuals can access sensitive data, thereby reducing unauthorized exposures that could lead to breaches.
• Implements rigorous access controls and continuous monitoring to defend against internal and external threats.
• Therefore, an effective identity governance system could recognize and prevent unauthorized access to financial records, ensuring the information's integrity and confidentiality.

2. Improved Compliance:

Improved Compliance ensures that businesses adhere to industry standards and regulatory requirements.

By implementing IG practices, organizations can systematically manage data, ensure compliance with various laws and regulations, reduce legal risks, and enhance operational transparency and accountability.

• Enforces policies that meet compliance standards such as GDPR, HIPAA, and SOX, protecting against legal consequences resulting from non-compliance.
• Conducts regular audits and access reviews to ensure compliance and promptly addresses any non-compliance issues.
• For instance, automated compliance reporting tools create required documents and track ongoing compliance, streamlining audits and ensuring the organization meets all regulatory needs.

3. Streamlined Access Management:

Streamlined Access Management simplifies the process of controlling user access within an organization. By utilizing automated provisioning and de-provisioning, IG minimizes manual efforts, ensuring timely and accurate access rights.

• Automatically provisions user access rights from day one, ensuring timely and accurate access to necessary systems and applications.
• Efficiently handles changes in user roles and promptly revokes access when a person leaves the organization, minimizing errors and unauthorized access.
• Furthermore, the system expedites onboarding upon hiring a new staff member. It boosts operational effectiveness by immediately providing access to pertinent resources such as databases and tools.

4. Increased Operational Efficiency:

It is achieved by automating routine identity and access management tasks, which reduces the administrative burden on IT staff.

This allows IT teams to focus on higher-priority tasks and optimizing resource utilization within the organization.

• Enables IT teams to focus on more strategic initiatives rather than spending time on manual access requests and adjustments.
• Automated workflows expedite granting and modifying access rights, improving resource allocation and productivity.
• Moreover, automated workflows for access requests and approvals simplify user permission management, allowing IT staff to focus on more complex tasks and increasing organizational performance.

5. Improved User Experience:

Effective IG streamlines access to necessary resources and improves user experience. It ensures secure and convenient access, reduces friction, and enables smoother interactions with the organization’s systems and data.

• Optimizes the process of granting access, reducing password issues and delays in accessing tools.
• Implements technologies like single sign-on (SSO) to simplify access by allowing users to log in once and access multiple applications with the same credentials.
• For example, SSO minimizes the frustration of managing multiple passwords and shortens login times, providing a seamless user experience and boosting productivity

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Identity Governance with CloudEagle

CloudEagle transforms identity governance by offering a comprehensive solution for managing and securing user access. Designed for finance, procurement, and IT teams, CloudEagle simplifies the SaaS buying and renewal process, optimizes software costs, and effectively manages SaaS applications.

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Here’s how CloudEagle enhances your IG strategy:

Strengthened Security: CloudEagle provides real-time insights into user access, allowing you to identify and address unauthorized access swiftly. This enhances your organization’s security posture by ensuring only authorized users can access sensitive information.

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Streamlined Compliance: With CloudEagle, compliance reporting and audit processes are automated, ensuring that you meet regulatory requirements and industry standards with minimal manual effort. This helps maintain a compliant environment effortlessly.

Efficient Access Management: CloudEagle simplifies user provisioning and deprovisioning. The platform ensures that access rights are accurately assigned and updated as user roles change, reducing the risk of errors and unauthorized access.

Increased Operational Efficiency: CloudEagle automates routine tasks related to Identity Management, allowing your IT and HR teams to focus on more strategic activities. Automation of access requests, approvals, and revocations reduces administrative burdens and increases productivity.

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CloudEagle’s integrated dashboard offers a unified view of your access management, enabling quick responses to potential risks. The platform's app access module lets users request access, which administrators can grant based on roles and responsibilities.

For instance, when a new employee joins, CloudEagle automatically suggests the relevant applications and sets up access. The system promptly revokes access when employees leave, ensuring security and compliance.

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To see CloudEagle in action, see how Alice Park from Remediant streamlined user provisioning and saved on spending using CloudEagle.

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Choosing CloudEagle for your identity governance needs will help secure your SaaS ecosystem and elevate your IG practices.

Request a demo today to discover how CloudEagle can enhance your identity and access management.

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Conclusion

Identity Governance is a critical component of a robust security framework that ensures the right individuals have the appropriate access to resources while meeting regulatory requirements.

Organizations can enhance their security posture, streamline operations, and reduce the risk of unauthorized access by effectively managing user identities, controlling access rights, and automating compliance processes.

CloudEagle stands out as a premier solution for identity governance. With its advanced features for real-time monitoring, automated access management, and seamless integration with SSO and HR systems, CloudEagle provides unparalleled efficiency and security.

Its user-friendly interface and comprehensive reporting capabilities make it the ideal choice for organizations looking to optimize their IG practices and maintain a secure, compliant IT environment.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. Why is IG so important for organizations today?

Identity Governance is vital because it ensures that only authorized users access sensitive data and resources, enhancing security and compliance while preventing unauthorized access and mismanagement.

Q2. What is the IAM governance process?

IAM governance involves controlling identities and access through policies and technologies. It ensures compliance with regulations and internal security standards while regularly reviewing and adjusting user access.

Q3. What is the main difference between IG and IAM?

The main difference is that IG focuses on compliance and oversight of access rights, while Identity and Access Management (IAM) covers the broader management of digital identities and access controls.

Q4. How does Identity Governance enhance security within an organization?

It enhances security by monitoring user access, ensuring only authorized individuals have access, and identifying and addressing potential security risks.

Q5. How does CloudEagle support Identity Governance?

CloudEagle supports IG with features like automated access management, real-time monitoring, and detailed compliance reporting, making identity management more efficient and secure.

Q6. What unique features does CloudEagle offer for Identity Governance?

CloudEagle offers automated provisioning, real-time access monitoring, and an integrated dashboard for visibility and compliance, simplifying identity governance and enhancing security.

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