It’s one of the biggest challenges businesses face today: How can they provide authorized employees quick, frictionless access to the applications they need to work while also securing infrastructure and data?
An effective identity and access management (IAM) program is the way shrewd businesses meet that challenge. At its heart, IAM is a security practice encompassing the policies, processes and technologies needed to deliver the correc›t network resources to authorized users. Businesses new to IAM often run into difficulties integrating this new practice into their legacy environments. Here are three common challenges that many organizations will face — and guidance on how to overcome them.
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1. IAM Requires a Cloud-First Mindset
Identity management practices in legacy environments are often built out across years of resource additions. They become decentralized and organized around particular on-premises assets. A modernized approach to identity management is to secure and govern identities and access from the cloud. This requires a fundamentally different approach to overall identity architecture.
“A unified and interconnected architecture is the first critical step that enables the success of identity modernization projects,” says Irina Nechaeva, general manager of identity product marketing with Microsoft. “It helps organizations think holistically about all users and all resources, helping define points of consolidation and simplification.”
Most businesses need to secure access to dozens of applications, from third-party SaaS tools to on-premises customized resources. It can be overwhelming to figure out where to get started with updating access management to all of these assets.
“A good way to simplify your identity modernization program is to group these applications by the type of authentication protocol, either modern or legacy,” adds Nechaeva. “This will inform the new identity architecture and modernization initiative milestones.”
2. Businesses Are Managing Multiple Authentication Protocols
Legacy protocols authentication protocols such as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol and Kerberos often sit alongside modern ones including OAuth2.0 and Security Assertion Markup Language inside today’s IT environments. This situation requires the creation and management individual user identities across resources, which can overwhelm IT teams.
One way to get a handle on managing multiple authentication protocols is using an application gateway. “An application gateway can be used to connect newer systems to legacy applications,” says Wesley Gyure, executive director of security product management for IBM. “These solutions proxy the flow of traffic and transform the data formats into the new authentication protocols being used to implement single sign-on.”
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Identity orchestration is another solution that can help businesses move away from juggling multiple authentication protocols. These tools provide a way to streamline identity and access management by organizing all of a business’s identity and authentication services into automated workflows.
“Identity orchestration allows organizations to build customized IAM architecture,” says Gyure. “This allows for easy integration of new systems and helps prevent vendor lock-in.”
61%
The share of IT and security professionals who consider IAM tools to be very effective at improving visibility into their security environment
Source: CDW, 2024 CDW Cybersecurity Research Report, June 2024
3. Employee Buy-In Is Critical to IAM Success
While IT teams are quick to grasp the value of modernizing IAM processes, it may be less apparent to employees. They are used to doing things a certain way. To help manage the change required for a new authentication process, consistency is key. Applying the same authentication protocol across the environment will help ensure a successful transition.
“You want to strive for consistency with your IAM programs,” says Gyure. “Making a change overnight and expecting immediate compliance will not work. Instead, a phased approach, delivering a consistent user experience, using the same authentication protocol across apps, will yield better results.”
In addition to consistency, you want to have a plan in place to educate users about the new processes being implemented.
EXPLORE: Understand the value of IAM in complex IT environments.
“Establishing a clear communication plan that outlines the benefits and features of the new IAM tool is crucial for fostering acceptance among users,” says Nechaeva. “Additionally, providing comprehensive training sessions tailored to different user roles can help demystify the tool and ease the transition process, ensuring that employees feel confident in using the new system.”
Integrating new IAM practices into your environment can be a complex task, requiring consideration of not just the technology, but also the processes and the people. In addition, many businesses require compliance with regulatory guidelines, including the General Data Protection Regulation, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and the California Consumer Privacy Act.
With so many considerations to address, businesses should consider a Rapid IAM Strategy Assessment to evaluate overall alignment to IAM best practices and provide suggestions for where improvements can be made to strengthen that alignment.
