The Rise of Centralized IAM: Managing Identities in a Digital World

\ Cybersecurity technologies are evolving fast, particularly centralized Identity and Access Management platform. In an era where almost everything poses a security risk, you simply can’t afford to have any doubts about security.

There’s a lot of information circulating about centralized IAM, and it’s easy to fall for some myths.

We’re not just talking about employees anymore. Think about all the other Non-Human Identities (NHIs): APIs, apps, services, scripts, bots, and so on. Centralized IAM brings all these identities under one roof.

So let’s reveal truths using real-world experience and identity security industry trends.

Myth 1: A Single IAM Platform Can’t Handle Both Use Cases Effectively

This myth is pretty old-school and maybe, back in the day, it could hold some credibility, but today? No.

Take the Uber app, for instance. To access trip details, the driver has to log into the app, which concurrently connects to payment systems and maps in the background without human intervention.

This is how big players like Microsoft, Okta, and SailPoint are pulling it off today. By building an ‘everything in one place’ platform capable of addressing human and non-human identities.

These platforms assign necessary permissions, monitor activities, and ensure all identities are managed securely throughout their life cycles.

Example: Managed Identity in Azure allows services to authenticate securely with other resources without credentials. It does this by creating an identity for an app in Azure Active Directory to access services like Key Vault storage and databases automatically.

Myth 2: NHIs don’t Need IAM, Just Hardcoded Credentials

Relying solely on hardcoded credentials is a risky approach, to say the least. NHIs are usually subjected to numerous cyberattacks as they have high privileges and are rarely audited. Considering that they outnumber their human counterparts by margins of nearly 80 to 1, treating them as secondary only increases the chances of attacks.

Speaking of attacks, cybercriminals have become clever. They target forgotten service accounts with admin rights, exposed API keys in Git repos, or even former employees’ accounts. Since they aren’t human beings, don’t expect a bot or a script to ‘complain’ in case these hard-coded credentials are exposed or impersonated.

The reality is that machines are now users and should be treated as such. This means:

●      Securely storing and rotating credentials using secret managers like HashiCorp Vault or AWS Secrets Manager.

●      Using mTLS for stronger verifiable identity, monitoring, and logging.

●      Applying least privilege access.

Myth 3: Unified IAM Means Sacrificing Security for Convenience

This is a common myth. But before dismissing it immediately, think of it this way. Does having everything conveniently in one place result in a weaker security posture? Quite the contrary, and here’s why;

Managing multiple identities and access policies across disparate systems could easily expose blind spots and inconsistencies. No one wants that. Instead, unifying IAM centralizes identity data and access rights under one platform, providing a more holistic view of “who has what, when, and how.”

For the admins, this translates to simplified provisioning and deprovisioning, logging and auditing, and reduced response time to security incidents.

Also, in unified IAM, trust isn’t implicitly granted. Whether from within or outside the network, every request must be strictly authenticated.

This shows that Unified IAM isn’t just about convenience, but also security. So, don’t let this myth turn into a misconception. Solutions like CyberArk and Okta are robust platforms for managing access to sensitive systems for people and NHIs.

Myth 4: Machine Identities are Too Dynamic for Traditional IAM

Traditional IAM was initially made for static human users and local servers with fixed IP addresses. So, in the age of cloud computing, where concepts like containerization, ephemeral instances, and server workloads were introduced, it would seem like these changes were too drastic and overwhelming for traditional IAM to handle.

But again, this is just a myth, nothing more. Security is getting smarter. Now, we have ‘Cloud-native IAM’ designed specifically to address this. How is this done?

Instead of assigning permanent IDs directly to EC2 instances, Lambda functions, or Kubernetes pods, cloud-native solutions like AWS use IAM roles. These roles are temporary and only last as long as the job description requires them. After that, the AWS STS terminates the instance, making it ideal for ephemeral workloads.

Myth 5: Regulatory Compliance Doesn’t Apply to NHIs

Modern systems, applications, and devices are automated, meaning NHIs are now doing most of the heavy lifting. To do that, they need access to sensitive information like credit card numbers, health records, and financial records—just to mention a few.

Regulators and auditors aren’t blind to this fact. They are more aware that a compromised service account or an over-privileged bot will likely cause severe damage than normal users.

As a result, they’ve tweaked their regulations to accommodate these NHIs. If your app, bot, or script has access to sensitive information, it needs to abide by these security standards, such as PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOX, GDPR, etc.

So, how do you ensure you remain compliant? Through automated attestation and auditing tools like SailPoint and Splunk. These platforms automatically review all your apps and bots, ensuring they have minimum access to what they need, and all their actions are well recorded. So when auditors and regulators come knocking, you are well prepared.

The Truths About Unified IAM

For quite some time now, the idea of a truly unified IAM seemed like a distant dream due to the complexities and diversity of the IT environment. However, advancements in IAM technologies and architectural patterns have turned this into a reality.

Modern platforms are now more than capable of handling human and NHIs comfortably with modules such as:

●      Identity Governance & Administration: for managing policies, requests, certifications, and life cycles of identities.

●      Access Management: such as Single Sign-On, Multi-factor Authentication, and API security.

●      Privilege Access Management: for handling highly privileged accounts.

●      Machine Identity Management specializes in handling the life cycles of NHIs

Also, when you factor in key architectural designs such as automation, centralization, API-First approach, and cloud-native designs, it simplifies the entire process of managing human and non-human identities, unlike in siloed IAM systems.

On top of this,  unified IAM ensures you remain in good standing with regulatory standards by automating access attestation, enforcing ‘least privilege’, and providing crucial data for breach reporting.

Recommendations

Assess IAM Tools for NHI Support

First, check if your IAM solution is capable of handling the unique life cycles, authentication, and access patterns of your NHIs. On many occasions, legacy tools lack this capability, which could spell trouble in dynamic environments.

Integrate PAM and Secret Management

Simply put, link your ‘master key’ system (PAM) with your ‘secret password keeper’. This will lock all privileged accounts and passwords tightly, making it hard, if not impossible, for someone to steal them.

Apply different monitoring strategies for humans and NHIs

Both of them are now users, no doubt. But at the end of the day, their behavior is different. For human users, monitor for typical user anomalies, while for NHI, focus on deviation from their expected outcome to check for any incidents.

Final thoughts

Unlike the myths we’ve debunked, unified IAM isn’t hot air. But again, it’s not going to happen on its own. You have to plan it out.

First things first, you have to be aware of what you have. Be it employees or those apps, services, scripts, and bots quietly working behind the scenes. After that, you have to figure out how many are in your security system—probably not all of them.

So until you get this right, building that strong, unified security system won’t be a walk in the park.

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