Environments we believe that we control can turn against us. In such situations, this reversal magnifies the danger. Sadly, this chilling fact enters the realm of the all-to-real in the case of insider threats. An insider threat occurs when a bad actor is a member the very organization they seek to compromise. At digitally connected enterprises, insider threats are especially dangerous, breaking down identity security and threatening the whole of an identity fabric.
Insider Security Risks are more Prevalent and Potentially More Damaging than External Threats
According to a Forrester study, insiders cause 58% of sensitive security incidents. The most-often cited incidents were lost devices, inadvertent misuse of sensitive information and intentional theft of data by employees. The impact of data breaches and downtime, whether caused by insider malice or negligence, can cripple an organization, exposing it to lost revenue, significant brand damage and increasingly onerous regulatory fines and penalties. The current average annual cost of an insider threat is $11.5 million.
Several factors contribute to a growing trend of dissatisfaction in workers. This creates a climate where the risk of employees wanting to lash out is proportionally higher than it once was. In the digital age, all it takes is one bad apple to cause far-reaching problems. Information Week reports that as many as 75% of all insider threat-driven breaches result from the actions of disgruntled employees. Identity security cannot endure long if the identities are in the possession of individuals who actively want to hurt the company.
But what about the other 25%? Unfortunately, an insider threat doesn’t need to be willing or even aware to threaten identity security. An insider, negligent or ignorant about identity hygiene, has no upward limit to the damage they might do. Employee negligence and even customer negligence have been blamed for some egregious cybersecurity breaches. Ultimately, so long as your enterprise lacks a managed identity security solution, insider threats remain a serious cyber threat.
“Blind Spots” cause Identity Security Audits to Fail
In a multi-industry concern such as cybersecurity, governing bodies brook no excuses about insider threats. Organizations who fail to protect their users will also fail critical audits in short order. Cybersecurity regulations including GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS all mandate tracking and remediation capabilities. For example, one of the biggest identity challenges for companies (and a major cause of failed audits) is a lack of visibility onto administrator accounts for Windows platforms.
Failed audits can be particularly damaging in today’s environment, in which regulations related to data loss and data protection are becoming more rigorous around the world. When disparate silos or on local servers manage identities and entitlements rather than central repositories, it becomes much easier for insider threats to jeopardize identity security. Ultimately, only by remediating the blind spots in your identity infrastructure can you satisfy your compliance requirements. Companies that conduct business globally must comply with a wide range of rules and regulations to satisfy audit requirements.
As such, organizations must prove that users who have access to certain servers and applications are authorized. They must also be able to deliver an auditable trail of what each user has done within the server. These requirements mean organizational policies need to apply the Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP). Under PoLP, users only have those privileges needed to do their jobs. If they need to have their privilege elevated for some reason, that is an explicit action requiring both manual controls and automatic record-keeping. This, in turn, makes frivolous privileges less of a threat.
Organizational Complexity Poses a Growing Challenge to Identity Security
Long ago, in the forgotten age of Steve Ballmer refusing to sell Microsoft 1.0 to Nebraska, managing employee identity used to be relatively easy. A user sat a desktop with a single machine connected to an enterprise application through a single wire. This made the tracking of company identities and their usage much simpler and safer. However, as the capabilities of technology have advanced, so too has their complexity. Users are now mobile and using a wide range of devices, some of which may be unsanctioned or undocumented personal devices. This greatly expands potential attack surfaces and opens up new breach vectors. Furthermore, mobility is only one aspect of the heightened complexity.
IT infrastructures are increasingly diverse and heterogeneous. Multiple silos defined by departments, applications, operating systems, or other characteristics set them apart from one another. The proliferation of virtualization and cloud services adds additional layers of complexity to the IT environment. Some of these cloud platforms even require their own cloud identity solution. Without a solution to unify user identities, organizations face the prospect of identity sprawl. The risks of sprawl include data loss, data breaches, application downtime, failed audits, and an inability to identify and rectify internal security problems before they escalate.
Savvy IT and security managers are recognizing that the most cost-efficient and effective way to address these challenges is to incorporate a solution that provides insiders with a unified identity across all platforms. By linking access privileges and activities to specific individuals, the IT organization minimizes security risks while gaining the visibility required to achieve compliance. This paradigm of Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) is rapidly becoming the baseline for intelligent identity security policy.
Combating Insider Threats through Intelligent IAM
So, with this rich tapestry of ways that insiders can ruin your day, how do you keep yourself safe? The first step is to understand the gaps in your current identity security solution. This involves conducting an evaluation, either internally or through an MSP, to understand where focus is needed. Once an identity benchmark has been established, you can proceed to implementing improvements. A digital transformation, revamping your identity solutions from the ground up, needs a solid foundation of well-informed analysis.
Next, your identity experts must patch up the systemic holes in your identity fabric. However, the new systems must be implemented to combat future threats as well. PAM security and IGA solutions are the most important of these for any enterprise. The addition of adaptive MFA, SSO, and active monitoring are key to strong identity security, remediating blind spots and reigning in complexity. These systems do not just keep an eye on all your enterprise identities while answering the 6 vital identity security questions. They also enhance your users’ experiences, reducing friction and giving them fewer reasons to become frustrated with you.
Insider threats are just one vector for devastating IAM breaches. While the prospect of investing in an identity overhaul might seem daunting, it is important to consider the potential costs of neglecting this aspect of your cybersecurity. With the average data breach costing $4.5 MN and noncompliance potentially racking up hundreds of millions in fines, the cost of inaction is much higher. Don’t leave your enterprise vulnerable to catastrophic data breaches; bolster your identity before you find yourself under attack from within.
The digital transformation in the financial sector has ushered in a new era. Traditional security perimeters are no longer pulling the weight they used to. Amidst this shift, the zero trust security model has fundamentally changed how security is approached. The guiding principle of this model is the concept of identity governance. This paradigm acts as the foundational layer for security in increasingly perimeterless IT environments. It is particularly relevant in the financial sector. In such an environment involving sensitive customer data and financial assets, the stakes of a security breach are exceptionally high.
Why Identity Governance Matters for Zero Trust
Adherence to zero trust principles, such as least privileged access and stringent user verification, is vital. Identity governance in this context is about much more than managing user access. In fact, it’s most important to understand user behavior, context, and the ever-changing threat landscape. This marks a shift from traditional, static security models to a more dynamic, context-aware approach. Financial institutions must intelligently implement identity governance systems. Consequently, enterprises must adapt to new threats, regulatory requirements, and the complex matrix of user roles and access needs.
This strategic shift in approach brings to the forefront several key challenges that organizations. These challenges, particularly in the financial sector, include:
Risk of excessive privileges – A significant challenge in adopting zero trust and identity governance is mitigating the risk of excessive privileges. Properly balancing access needs while ensuring security protocols are adhered to is crucial. Excessive privileges pose a security threat and complicate compliance and operational efficiency.
Need for both cloud and on-premise environmental support –As financial institutions increasingly embrace a hybrid IT environment, the need for identity governance solutions that support both cloud and on-premise systems becomes essential.
Compliance efforts not efficient enough – Financial institutions face the challenge of ensuring their compliance efforts are efficient and effective.
Each of these challenges underscores the importance of a robust and agile identity governance framework. This framework aligns with the zero trust model, addressing the unique needs and risks of the financial sector.
Critical Capabilities of Identity Governance for Zero Trust
Simeio, the world’s largest single-source provider of IAM and IGA services, delivers a governance framework built on advanced technological capabilities. This includes granular access controls and modeling that can map out the nuanced access needs of various roles within a financial institution. Analytical insights power the automation of provisioning and deprovisioning. Thus you ensure that access rights are managed efficiently, thereby mitigating the risk of insider threats.
Furthermore, the analytics and intelligence components of Simeio’s solutions provide deep visibility into user activities and potential security anomalies. This combines seamless integration capabilities with existing Privileged Access Management (PAM) systems and broader Identity and Access Management (IAM) frameworks, ensuring a unified and robust security posture.
Enabling Zero Trust
Adopting a dynamic, identity-centric approach is essential in financial services, where access decisions can have significant implications. To this end, Simeio’s solutions facilitate this through continuous risk assessment and adaptive authentication mechanisms. This approach enables the option for privileged access. In turn, this ensures that elevated rights are granted only when necessary and under stringent controls. The concept of micro-segmentation, implemented through role-based access controls, further reinforces the zero trust model by ensuring that users have access only to the resources necessary for their specific roles, reducing the attack surface within the organization.
Implementing Effective Identity Governance
Implementing effective identity governance involves a strategic alignment of technology and policy. Prioritizing key governance capabilities like policy enforcement, role management, and compliance alignment can’t be understated. Cloud-based identity platforms provide scalability and flexibility, allowing financial institutions to respond swiftly to changing market dynamics and regulatory demands. Moreover, integrating these platforms with existing Identity Management infrastructure is key to creating a cohesive and comprehensive security ecosystem, essential for maintaining the integrity of financial data and operations.
The efficacy of these strategies is not theoretical. The experiences and testimonials of those who have implemented and benefited from robust identity governance frameworks reflect their success. These real-world insights provide a practical perspective on how these strategies are executed. Additionally, it highlights their tangible impacts on improving security and operational efficiency.
“We were looking for a solution to help us with our Identity Access Management. So, we partnered with Simeio to bring us a cloud-based solution because we didn’t want to spend all our technology time worrying about IAM. We chose Simeo because they brought the best solutions that fit our needs and reduce the existing complexities.”– Chief Information Officer at a not-for-profit financial education provider.
“Simeio had all the answers we were looking for in order to deploy our identity access management solution. From helping us pick our vendor, saving a significant amount of time, to supporting us with our journey in automating our application certifications – Simeo was there all along.” – Identity Management Analyst for a publicly traded, full-service bank.
Fortify Your Digital Future
The financial sector’s move towards digitalization underscores the necessity of a robust identity governance framework. Furthermore, this shift must take place within the zero trust security model. Fortunately, by leveraging advanced identity governance solutions, financial institutions can effectively manage and mitigate the complex security challenges they face. Collaborating with industry experts like Simeio can be a pivotal step in strengthening your organization’s security posture.
Simeio is uniquely positioned to guide and protect your organization. We accomplish this through a blend of identity governance software expertise and a nuanced understanding of financial services. Access to purpose-built technology, identity management processes, and expertise; your institution acquires all of these by choosing Simeio as your identity governance partner. Additionally, we balance productivity and control across your client-facing, back-office, and internal ecosystems. This provides unparalleled protection to user identities, cloud security, and access governance. Simeio strives to provide you with an unparalleled “service first experience that is consultative at every phase of your project. You can expect an IAM solution design and implementation that performs as required, grows with your needs, and provides the security to protect your employees, customers, and brand reputation.
Get the best-in-class IGA services with reliable 24/7 cloud security monitoring and support – with minimal hardware or capital investments, lengthy integrations, migrations, or upgrades required. Simeio’s identity access management services address serious and rapidly changing security threats while minimizing the impact on your organization and employees.
The time to fortify your digital future is now. Their team of experts is ready to help you extract the utmost value from your identity investments, ensuring robust security for the digital era. Talk to an identity advisor today.
You finally hang up the phone with a tired groan. That was the fifth time this month that a patient’s data didn’t come up when requested. As a CISO for a major hospital, you already get enough trouble from your sluggish management platform. If there’s another incident like last week, where a nurse couldn’t pull up a coding patient’s chart, you’ll probably be looking for another job. If only you could articulate to the higher-ups the root of the problem: you need a new identity vendor.
Perhaps your organization has already sunk time and money into making the current solution work. Maybe you’ve attempted to integrate the solution into your application environment and spent hundreds of hours training your IT staff and end users. But no matter how much you try to accommodate, your identity vendor refuses to do the same. If you’re in a toxic relationship with your MSP, the biggest mistake you can make is not getting out of it.
At the end of the day, you need to do what is best for your organization and the patients under your care. When your current solution fails, you don’t need to fail with it. You need to move to a solution that provides you with ROI, stability, security, and functionality worth the thousands of dollars you pay for them. By recognizing the absence of these factors, you’ll know when it’s time to make a change.
1. Your Return on Investment (ROI) is Unacceptable
Pull no punches when assessing the business value you’re getting from your current identity solution. Start by calculating the total cost of ownership of your identity solution system. Firstly, add up the costs of licensing costs, maintenance, upgrades, consulting fees, professional services, and internal identity staff. Next, compare to the quantifiable benefits have you achieved, such as lowered compliance costs, reduced IT and helpdesk strain, and improved end user productivity. When the solution was implemented, did outpatient satisfaction go up? Have caregivers reported less friction with your systems?
Lastly, don’t forget opportunity cost. What does it cost you to stay with your current identity solution if you’re unable to address pressing business needs? Is the cost to renew, maintain and potentially even upgrade your existing solution higher than what it would cost to switch to a better alternative? If you cannot answer these questions, an identity assessment should be your highest priority.
2. Your Current Identity Vendor Is Mid-M&A
A company acquisition or merger can bring a feeling of anxiety for a customer of either company. The future becomes unclear as to what will happen: whether either company’s product will be available or maintained or if you’ll be forced to migrate to another product altogether. This can even compromise your organization’s security at a time when public eyes will already be on your identity vendor, possibly attracting the attention of hackers.
Any company worth its salt will go out of their way to assure its customers and assure stability throughout their internal changes. If you’re not given an exact step-by-step run-through of how they plan to keep your systems up to par, take the opportunity to bow out. A momentary lapse on a hospital floor can prove fatal to a patient. Similarly, a lapse of months might spell doom for your data integrity. If your current provider can’t tell you what’s happening over the next few months, how you’ll be supported as a customer, and what the merger means for both you and the product, it’s time to start looking for a more stable option.
3. Your Identity Vendor Doesn’t Provide the Integration and Innovation Needed to Future Proof your Identity Solution
Your current identity vendor may have gotten you used to exorbitant development and integration fees. Alternatively, your vendor might not support you in this respect at all, forcing you to have your own development team create a connection point and hope that it works. Does your current identity solution integrate with all of your key systems? Is identity governance the main focus of your vendor, or is it secondary to other services?
Furthermore, your vendor should account for future developments. Does their strategy include plans for cloud-storage, RPAs/bot identities and a rapidly growing AI identity governance capability? Finally, consider the burden of regulatory compliance. The healthcare industry faces increasingly strict cybersecurity standards. Easing compliance headaches is one of the most important services an identity vendor provides. A skillful team anticipates their client’s needs and works to satisfy them. For example, your HIPAA compliance can be greatly eased through automatic data collection. This proves your due diligence in properly handling patient information and keeping it safe.
4. Your Existing Identity Vendor is Forcing You to Migrate to a New Architecture
When your identity governance vendor has “re-architected” its solution and all future investments will be allocated to this new offering, it’s a tough dilemma to face. Unfortunately, implementing the new architecture will require an expensive and time-consuming migration project. You will, in essence, have to start over: rebuilding and re-implementing functionality such as custom user interfaces, policies, workflows and resource connectors. This situation can prove catastrophic in high-activity environments such as hospitals where a single say offline is unacceptable.
Migrating to your existing vendor’s new architecture requires a “rip-and-replace” of your current identity solution. Depending on the policies of the vendor, you may even be expected to foot the bill yourself. Instead, reevaluate your options. Do not assume the best decision is sticking with your current vendor. You may be better off switching to an identity governance vendor with a proven product and satisfied customers. If the prospective vendor demonstrates how they can keep your systems running throughout the migration, bump them to the top of your prospects list.
5. Your Identity Vendor’s Satisfaction and Retention Ratings Are Low
Don’t settle for poor customer support when better options are available. A caregiving environment is challenging enough when systems are running smoothly; a defective identity solution can become a nightmare. Verizon’s 2023 data breach investigations report revealed that 74% of breaches in 2023 stemmed from human error. You cannot afford to associate with subpar staff when your data integrity is at stake. Do some research on your current identity vendor. Talk to other customers that you’ve met at user conferences or trade shows and ask about their satisfaction levels. Make use of analyst firms like Gartner, Forrester, or even other identity vendors.
In the Gartner Magic Quadrant for IGA, Gartner shares customer satisfaction ratings for the major vendors. To go deeper, schedule an analyst consultation and get more details about each vendor’s customer satisfaction and retention scores. It’s never too late to learn more about the people you’re doing business with. Unless, of course, they’ve already damaged you. Do not let things reach that stage.
6. You Don’t Have Visibility into All Your Systems
Does your identity vendor not equip you to answer the 6 identity and access security questions? If not, that alone is reason enough to seek out a new identity vendor. Legacy identity solutions are limited in their availability to integrate with all the systems you use in the organization. For you to be the most secure and know exactly “who has access to what,” you need to implement a governance-based solution.
Modern PAM solutions provide you with moment-to-moment tracking of user activity. Furthermore, a strong IGA solution automatically enforces your policies and can even take advantage of technologies like adaptive MFA for additional security. Your organization’s CISOs can sleep much easier when backed up by such a system, knowing that each identity has a perimeter around it and a remediation strategy behind it.
7. Your Solution is at “End-of-Life” Status
In a market where major companies make absurd mistakes, it is unsurprising that many organizations stick with an identity solution long after it has been moved to “EOL.” Many organizations are reluctant to sign up for the migration effort and worry about business disruption. What is the strategic price you are paying to stay with software that has no future?
Unsupported software won’t keep pace with the exponential acceleration of technology. How can you cope when your solution can’t manage cloud apps or unstructured data, handle mobile and social requirements, or meet new security and privacy mandates? What if you acquire new life-saving machines, only to find them unable to interface with your obsolete systems? While you may still get the occasional patch, they will be few and far between.
The time to change is now. Don’t let inertia keep you trapped in a sub-optimal identity program. It’s time to step forward with identity management solutions that can get your organization back on track. You can achieve big results that will improve end user productivity, strengthen compliance and security, and reduce IT and helpdesk operational costs.
Reach out to a Simeio Identity Expert and see if we might be your best identity vendor choice.
If you’re in the financial services sector then obviously you’re reasonably good at measuring your ROI, risks, and making sure your customers can count on you when it comes to entrusting you with their most valuable assets and investments. As such, you know that investing is important. For reasons of savings, compliance, and security, managed identity governance is an investment you must make if you wish to succeed in the shifting marketplace of finance, and elevate your brand equity.
The ROIs of managed identity governance are proven and clear cut. IAM services provides savings on common pain points, including investing on a dedicated IAM team, licensing fees of identity tools, and productivity. IGA and PAM go a long way towards meeting compliance requirements. The tightened perimeter of IAM also prevents breaches, which can be catastrophic both to your finances and your customer trust.
Savings from Managed Identity Governance
Before getting into the major matters of compliance and security, consider the impact managed identity has on your daily operations. Whether you’re a credit card service, a bank, or an investment brokerage firm, your customer interactions depend on a strong identity apparatus. You act as steward of the wealth of another who trusts you to look after what is theirs. Without a solid foundation of governance, can you really be said to be worthy of that trust?
CIAM (Customer Identity and Access Management) should be at the top of your priorities for IAM investments. Investing on a robust CIAM elevates your business, especially when matched with managed identity governance. Banking institutions regularly breach millions. Wells Fargo boasts 68 MN active users. Ameris boasts over 300k customers and 66k businesses. Fidelity Investments claims over 80 MN active accounts. Discover lists over 57 MN cardholders in the US alone – so clearly when so many customers are at stake, investing proactively on identity governance only makes sense.
According to the Simeio’s Identity Saving’s Calculator, a bank serving a mere 20k customers across just 5 applications would save more than $2.4 MN a year. $520k would be saved in password rests alone. Implementing full blown IAM solutions can greatly improve your enterprise, but implementation can be complicated. Thus, financial institutions should strongly consider the merits of identity orchestration. Such a platform doesn’t just provide the centralized control needed for effective implementation of SSO, MFA, and secure self-service. It also provides critical monitoring, in real time no less, of information crucial to meeting compliance.
As a financial institution, your biggest compliances are GDPR, PCI DSS, GLBA, SOX, and AML. Preparing for these requires several capabilities and ongoing practices. Are your identities able to be swiftly de-provisioned and their associated data scrubbed? Do you know if your third-party vendors are creating security risks? How much of your identity perimeter is unguarded and what are your remediation plans if a breach does occur? How often do you curate your identities for orphaned accounts and delete them before they become a vulnerability?
Managed identity governance can help you fulfill these needs and excel in other areas. Federated identity management can help ensure your security policies are automatically enforced. Managed identity governance helps counter identity sprawl, reining in extraneous accounts and reducing unnecessary attack surfaces. Privileged Access Management (PAM) grants real-time monitoring of sensitive accounts and automatically cuts off access the moment suspicious activity is detected.
Preventing Breaches through Managed Identity Governance
Having considered the tough but predictable burdens of compliance, now turn to the dark possibility of unforeseen catastrophe, and the rising costs of being breached. According to a report by Cybersecurity news, The average cost of a data breach in banking and finance increased from $5.72 million in 2021 to $5.97 million in 2022. There is also the matter of loss of customer trust, which can lead to a loss of customers, which leads to a loss in revenue. How much trust was lost by Flagstar when they suffered a massive data breach in June of 2022, leaking the social security numbers of nearly 1.5 MN customers?
You should also consider the uncomfortable need for a remediation strategy. Beyond being a requirement of compliance, the fact remains that bad actors and sneaky and smart. Unless every inch of your attack surface is locked up, you will have vulnerabilities. When hackers discover a weak point, they will attack and exploit it until they drill into where they shouldn’t be. Having a plan for when things catch on fire is not weakness or an admission of defeat. It is a sign of maturity.
Beyond the oppressive penalties levied against violators and the calumny of being hacked, failure to invest in the above systems leaves your systems under-equipped for the modern digital landscape. Each pain point is one more roadblock between a prospect and a customer. Every unoptimized system is another few thousand lost to inefficiency. Every sign of weakness in your cybersecurity strategy is a doubt sown in the minds of your customers. Only a unified solution, stretching across every identity under your responsibility, can safeguard against the disasters their absence invites.
A prominent research firm has made a significant prediction, stating that around 70% of healthcare organizations will adopt digital-first strategies, implement interoperable workflows, and utilize consumer data applications by 2027. The primary objective of this transformation is to empower patients, improve their overall experience, and establish trust. Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) is at the forefront of this strategy, and IGA services are the primary means by which they are effectively implemented.
IGA Services and the Challenges of Healthcare Identity Management
While some healthcare organizations still face challenges, such as outdated systems and the need to comply with healthcare-related regulations, most prioritize digital transformation to revolutionize what is traditionally a manual operating system. Maintaining compliance and adhering to regulations will remain ongoing challenges for healthcare providers. However, keeping up with them and successfully implementing digital transformation can be significantly enhanced by employing to ensure the secure and compliant participation of all users, including humans, and connected devices, in utilizing IT resources.
With digital transformation initiatives, the need to embed robust identity governance into their identity fabric becomes the core of building a solid and robust system for healthcare providers. Today, hackers can sell a single medical record for $10 to $1000. The healthcare industry is not the only industry where internal actors are the most significant threat through an error or mistake. According to the 2023 Verizon report, 74% of all breaches include the human element, with people being involved either via Error, privilege misuse, use of stolen credentials – thus making it more relevant to have relevant governance process to protect and secure identities and accesses.
Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) plays a significant role in enhancing digital transformation success for healthcare providers. This is through implementing processes, policies, and technologies that enable organizations to manage and govern digital identities and access to resources within their IT infrastructure. Through IGA services, healthcare organizations can implement a robust security strategy. These include regular security assessments, aligning with required compliance and standards, and a preventive approach towards access gaps. However, a healthcare organization often may not have the capacity to have a dedicated IGA team. That is where an IGA service provider can come to the rescue.
5 Ways that IGA services Contribute to the Success of Digital Transformation Initiatives
Secure Access Management: IGA services support healthcare providers in their execution of robust access controls and enforcement of security policies across their digital systems. By identifying the IGA tools that best suit the organization’s needs, authorization processes to access sensitive information (patient data, applications, systems, etc.) is established most efficiently. This mitigates the risk of unauthorized access, data breaches, and potential compliance violations. Often healthcare organizations do not know which IGA technology will best serve their goals and meet their budget. IGA services support and address that need.
Streamlined Identity Lifecycle Management: An IGA service provider manages the complete lifecycle of user identities. This includes user onboarding, role-based provisioning, access modifications, and de-provisioning. It also extends to maintaining accurate and up-to-date user information and ensuring access privileges align with users’ roles and responsibilities. These processes remove the burden of internal-only management and free up personnel resources.
Compliance and Audit Readiness: The healthcare industry is subject to strict regulatory frameworks. These include the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the United States or the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union. An IGA service provider can help healthcare providers set processes and policies that meet these compliance requirements. These include providing comprehensive visibility into user access rights, facilitating segregation of duties (SoD) controls, and generating audit trails for access activities. An IGA service provider thus ensures that healthcare organizations can demonstrate compliance during audits and avoid penalties for non-compliance.
User Experience and Productivity: Digital transformation initiatives involve implementing new technologies, applications, and systems across the healthcare ecosystem. Oftentimes migration from legacy systems to these modern technologies can become complex in pursuit of establishing strict security protocols. In this journey of migration the user experience may degrade. IGA services enable a simplified and enhanced user experience by providing adequate and seamless single sign-on (SSO) capabilities. This allows users to access multiple applications via a single set of credentials. This not only improves user productivity but also reduces the burden of password management and enhances security by promoting the use of strong and unique passwords.
Risk Management: IGA service programs can enable healthcare providers to effectively manage and mitigate user access and entitlements risks. By enforcing least privilege principles and implementing automated access review processes, organizations can ensure that users have the necessary access permissions where needed and minimize the risk of unauthorized access or data breaches. But for most security leaders in healthcare organizations, this may mean needing help to keep up with the risks as threats become sophisticated and identity technologies evolve. An IGA service provider’s core business is to stay updated on the tools and the threats that may loom in the future.
Get on Track for Effective Digital Transformation
Healthcare organizations face many challenges today but must prioritize patient care and provide the most seamless experience to their patients, employees, and partners. While partnering with an IGA service provider is worth the investment, healthcare organizations must define the need for one and do due diligence on the best-suited partner. Healthcare enterprises should consider working with an experienced and certified team of IGA professionals or specialized vendors in IAM who focus only on identity.
Though it serves as a crucial IAM domain in all sectors, identity governance and administration (IGA) for energy is of particular importance. From the light switch in the home to the emergency shutoff at a nuclear plant, control of energy remains a vital part of life (literally in the case of hospital equipment). When a utility depends upon a grid, ensuring that the paying customers are not deprived of their technological lifeblood, perhaps at the most critical of times, is the responsibility of energy providers.
The world has run on electricity for over a century and has only become more dependent upon it in that time. A downed power line can disrupt an entire neighborhood, but an interrupted provider can cripple a nation. Cyber-attacks are targeting energy providers more than ever. Over three-quarters (77%) of organizations across US critical national infrastructure (CNI) have seen a rise in insider-driven cyberthreats in the last three years, according to new research from cybersecurity services firm Bridewell. You need to prepare before a potential, preventable attack becomes a reality. IGA in the energy industry is as much about preventing and remediating breach events as it is ensuring that authorized users have swift and easy access. Cybersecurity in energy is a necessity, because without energy there is no “cyber” to secure.
The Unique IAM Challenges of the Energy Industry
While the usual needs driving engagement with a managed identity service for businesses are common with many other industries, energy enterprises face a few challenges unique to them. The most pressing need as of 2023 is the issue of buying and selling renewable energy acquisitions. Robert Youens, Senior Manager, Simeio, reports that “renewable energy acquisitions require extensive IAM space to quickly onboard the huge number of applications needed to meet compliance regulations.” For companies using manual governance solutions, onboarding can drag on for months.
In the daily operations of facilities like petrochemical plants, IAM also touches the complex machinery used in production. Site control rooms require users to quickly access critical systems to handle essential tasks, especially in emergencies where seconds count. Some companies expedite access using a common “room” identity to access these critical systems. Unfortunately, this machine identity can make tracking who made a change difficult. What’s more, orphaned accounts, often with great power thanks to overprovisioning, left over from terminated employees can provide a devastating back door into your most vulnerable hardpoints.
Given the potentially dangerous nature of heavy machinery, cyberattacks on interconnected metal behemoths can be particularly insidious. DDOS and Ransomware attacks have proven to be the greatest cybersecurity threat to the energy industry, while infrastructure-based attacks like the NC substation shooting add another threat vector. High profile events like the 2021 Colonial Pipeline attack highlight the need for powerful detection and remediation systems. Only through solid IGA can you avoid a costly payout to both the hackers and regulators.
How IGA Addresses Energy Industry Challenges
Only an efficient and secure solution can deliver the results needed for this litany of challenges. IGA, especially when paired with the capabilities of a robust PAM and identity orchestration system, ensures that the right people get quick access to critical assets. IGA catalogues every access request, recording the time, place, and user for each instance, ensuring that no gaps can form in your timelines. Fully integrated IGA can even cover the vulnerabilities of your third-party vendors, an all-too-common vector in cyber-attacks.
A strong IGA makes energy enterprises safer, both in the digital space and on the “factory floor.” IGA accomplishes this by enforcing proper role-based permissions. Before a single lock might protect a common control room. Now the system interface itself serves your cybersecurity needs, requiring authorization and authentication. Your critical machine worth hundreds of thousands of dollars performing functions worth millions will not be open to just anyone. Yet, thanks to measures like SSO and MFA, friction is minimized. This allows your plants to pump out power without interruption from onerous security procedures.
The benefits of IGA also extend into the realm of rollouts for crucial new developments. When paired with “hyper” automation, important new applications and systems can be quickly integrated into pre-existing architecture. Enterprises enjoying managed IGA providers have an easier time melding of new systems into their identity fabric. What once took months might be accomplished in mere minutes. This grants unprecedented agility when fulfilling the needs of compliance and upgrades, all without compromising security.
Choosing the Best IGA for your Energy Enterprise
The ideal IGA for your enterprise should be managed, expert-driven, and scalable. A managed identity service greatly enhances your enterprise performance. Not only does the service provide an insightful assessment, but it gives you the tools needed to effectively implement recommendations. Such an identity service doesn’t straitjacket you into a single installation, unsuited for your needs and unoptimized for your workflows. Like a bespoke tailored suit, an identity service puts every penny you invest towards delivering the best possible performance.
When searching for an identity MSP suited for your energy industry identity needs, check a potential provider’s portfolio. You want someone with experience across diverse industries yet as focused on identity as possible. A managed identity service that also tries to juggle hardware production won’t have the specialization needed to shape your ideal IGA solution. An experienced identity expert becomes intimately familiar with the difficulties of their client industries communicates their readiness to conquer them. Do not forget the human element in your search; good on-call customer support is always a must.
Finally, your ideal identity service provider understands that identity solutions cannot be “fire and forget.” They require constant monitoring, maintenance, and evolution to meet changing needs. Beyond just staying current with compliance, a strong identity service provider looks to the future. Analysis of important market and cybersecurity trends helps predict which investments are most relevant to keeping your IGA agile and safe. Whether that means instituting a new cybersecurity strategy or accommodating your movements into the green energy market, strong foundations allow you to scale up.
