Security News > 2024 > February > What Is Identity and Access Management (IAM)?
Identity and Access Management is all about establishing the identity of a user and verifying that the user has the right to access certain applications and types of information.
According to Gartner's definition, "Identity and Access Management is a security and business discipline that includes multiple technologies and business processes to help the right people or machines to access the right assets at the right time for the right reasons, while keeping unauthorized access and fraud at bay."
Modern IAM must be able to cope with the decentralized nature of apps and data while providing secure access to emails, databases and data to only those identities that can be verified as authentic.
As the name suggests, identity and access management has two primary functions: the management of identities and the management of access.
Following the verification of identity, the next function of IAM is to manage their access rights.
Identity governance covers the entire range of identity and access functions to ensure that all appropriate standards are adhered to, that the organization remains in compliance to applicable regulations and that an audit trail exists for any changes to identities and access rights.