Today’s IT ecosystem rapidly evolves to meet the dynamic needs of a modern workforce. Remote work, global markets, and geographically disparate teams demolished the old security boundaries. The perimeter is no longer a secure on-premises or VPN connection. Identity has emerged as the only logical security perimeter for this generation’s organizations.
Legacy IAM solutions were the perfect fit at one time but do they still meet your organization’s current needs? When 61% of all breaches involve credentials, adapting your IAM solution to meet the evolving technology needs is a must for keeping your enterprise secure.
Consider these 3 top indicators to determine if your current IAM solution and processes require modernization.
Reason 1: Cloud is King
Many legacy IAM solutions were designed to work for on-premises systems. It is not that they cannot interface with off-site and cloud environments; the cloud’s ephemeral nature makes it tricky. Cloud environments constantly adapt to load, so systems are created and destroyed automatically, creating a fluid environment. Older legacy systems are configured to have relatively static environments, and the constant fluctuation of cloud environments requires manual changes and configuration in the IAM systems to accommodate it.
Current IAM solutions integrate with both cloud and on-premises, helping keep pace with your organizational cloud adoption. Their platforms are designed for watching for changes in the environment, dynamically and intelligently updating their information to reflect the changes. They keep track of the changing assets and can attribute appropriate access rights to new nodes as they are created, understanding that they are part of an existing configuration rather than unique new systems.
Reason 2: Automation
The speed of Business is not slowing down, and automation is essential for keeping up with staff changes. Newer IAM systems have streamlined operations for workflows to make it easier to manage change. As staffing changes from adding new workers, others changing jobs, or leaving for new positions, access needs to be updated. Doing this manually is a tedious process and delays those coming into new positions while leaving dangerous security gaps for those leaving a role.
Modern IAM systems have streamlining capabilities to make intelligent decisions about individuals’ roles. It intelligently analyzes peer roles and similar group memberships for a given role, recommending appropriate access rights to be assigned. This helps expedite onboarding while also removing unnecessary access for those leaving a position.
Reason 3: Security
Security reasons are one of the most crucial factors in needing to upgrade from a legacy IAM solution. Tracking in real-time who has access is essential for security management and maintaining the proper access for your teams at all times. This information can translate into better visibility into overall organizational access and utilization. Knowing this is necessary for identifying access misuse and potential attacks.
In the case of a breach, this information also is crucial for understanding the full scope of the breach and what assets might have been compromised. For example, when account credentials are stolen and used, delineating exactly what access an individual has and used helps to scope the impact. When this information is not available, organizations have to assume any assets the individual could access were affected, increasing the scope of a breach. Having this in-depth knowledge significantly lowers the overall cost of a breach.
Modernizing the Right Way
When your organization is ready to modernize your IAM solution, you need a partner to help minimize disruption and avoid the common pitfalls of transition. Persistent has a team of skilled professionals that can guide your organization through all of the stages of IAM modernization while still keeping operations flowing smoothly.
Learn more about how Persistent can help your organization modernize your IAM solution.
