Maintaining compliance with data privacy regulations feels like a grind at times for businesses. But it’s good to keep in mind that the headaches that come with compliance are minor compared with problems that can arise without it. When a data breach occurs, the consequences are significant; penalties are imposed, your public reputation is damaged, and you lose your customers’ trust.
Many businesses looking to maintain compliance lack a centralized approach to identity and access management. IAM practices can become fragmented over time, with different access policies in place for different apps and data assets. This makes compliance very challenging.
A modern, centralized IAM approach makes regulatory compliance much easier. Here are three reasons why IAM is essential for staying up to date with compliance laws.
Click the banner below to see how identity access management can ensure seamless security.
1. IAM Supports Robust Identity and Access Governance
A strong IAM practice will provide guidance related to people, processes and tools. The processes are the steps the organization takes based on established policy, also known as governance. When governance is informed by compliance requirements and applied consistently, IAM keeps the organization aligned with regulatory needs. Automation of identity and access management processes makes compliance easier to maintain.
“Modern IAM enables organizations to establish automated processes to manage employee join-move-leave scenarios,” says Irina Nechaeva, general manager of identity product marketing for Microsoft. “For each of those steps, identity lifecycle workflows can ensure the person’s access changes based on the predefined events, such as a change to their status in an organization’s HR system or other relevant attributes.”
Automation can also assist with the ongoing review of access privileges, a valuable best practice for maintaining regulatory compliance. Nechaeva continues: “Identity governance solutions enable organizations to require periodic access review, where business owners of various applications or groups can review all people who have access to particular resources and remove access from users that no longer need it.”
2. IAM Enables Role-Based Access Control
The concept of least privilege is the cybersecurity practice of limiting an employee’s access to data, applications and resources to only what is necessary to fulfill the responsibilities of their role. This idea underpins many of the compliance mandates out there. Using role-based access control as part of a business’s IAM practice strongly supports compliance efforts.
“RBAC assigns levels of access based on the role of the employee,” says Wesley Gyure, executive director of security product management for IBM. “Using roles and identifying entitlements that are assigned to the roles allows businesses to assign people to groups that align to that access.”
Employees within an organization do not remain static. Some are promoted to new roles and others may move between teams as their careers progress. RBAC makes it easier to adjust access for employees on the move.
“RBAC allows businesses to evolve with those individuals over time,” continues Gyure. “You can switch entitlements as needed to give the right level of access at the right time for that individual.”
3. IAM Practices Compel Detailed Auditing and Reporting
Compliance regulations require organizations to maintain detailed logging and reporting that can be referenced for auditing purposes. IAM practices set up the framework and the tools for tracking user activity, access attempts and any changes to user privileges.
“IAM solutions provide a variety of reports that support an organization’s auditing and regulatory reporting requirements,” says Nechaeva. “This reporting may include changes to user roles, various actions that were performed by users with a particular role, understanding whether appropriate approvals were in place before granting access and many other relevant scenarios.”
This positions organizations to provide evidence of alignment with regulations. And should a data privacy incident occur, it gives businesses a way to backtrack and determine the circumstances that led to the incident.
EXPLORE: Understand the value of IAM in complex IT environments.
While it takes some effort to stand up and organize, a consistently applied IAM practice yields many benefits. Along with aligning businesses to regulatory guidelines, an IAM practice strengthens overall security. Clear oversight of user privileges and access controls provides visibility into the organization’s overall security posture.
Staying up to date on local, state and federal compliance regulations is not always top of mind for many business leaders. Working with a vendor that has strong familiarity with data privacy regulations can allow your business to build an effective IAM practice while continuing to pursue its business goals.
Businesses should consider a Rapid IAM Strategy Assessment from CDW to evaluate overall alignment to IAM best practices and provide suggestions for where improvements can be made to strengthen that alignment.
