Identity and Access Management (IAM) is an essential part of any organization’s security posture. IAM helps organizations manage user identities and control access to resources, applications, and data. Identity analytics is a subset of IAM that focuses on using data analysis techniques to gain insights into user behaviour, detect anomalies, and prevent security threats. In this article, we will explore the top 10 IAM identity analytics use cases and the solutions to implement them.
- User behaviour analysis is a critical use case for IAM identity analytics. It involves tracking user activities across systems, applications, and devices to detect anomalous behaviour that may indicate a security threat. Identity analytics solutions use machine learning and behavioural modelling to detect abnormal user behaviour patterns and trigger alerts to security teams.
Solution: IBM Security Verify Access provides user behaviour analysis capabilities that use machine learning to identify unusual user activity, including failed login attempts, suspicious logins, and unusual data access patterns.
- Privileged user monitoring is another critical use case for IAM identity analytics. It involves monitoring the activities of users with elevated privileges, such as system administrators, to ensure that they are not misusing their access rights. Identity analytics solutions can help detect and prevent unauthorized activities by privileged users by tracking their activities in real time and alerting security teams when suspicious activities occur.
Solution: One Identity Safeguard provides privileged user monitoring capabilities that enable organizations to track privileged user activity across all systems, applications, and devices, and detect unauthorized activities in real-time.
- Access certification is the process of reviewing and verifying user access rights to ensure that they are appropriate and necessary. Identity analytics solutions can automate the access certification process by analyzing user access data and identifying access rights that are no longer needed or inappropriate.
Solution: SailPoint IdentityIQ provides access certification capabilities that automate the access review process by analyzing user access data and identifying access rights that are no longer needed or inappropriate.
- Identity governance is the process of managing user identities and access rights across an organization. Identity analytics solutions can help organizations automate the identity governance process by analyzing user data, identifying risky users, and enforcing access policies.
Solution: RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle provides identity governance capabilities that automate identity management processes, including user provisioning, access certification, and risk analysis.
- Role mining is the process of analyzing user access data to identify common access patterns and create roles that reflect those patterns. Identity analytics solutions can help automate the role-mining process by analyzing user access data, identifying common access patterns, and creating roles based on those patterns.
Solution: Micro Focus Identity Governance provides role mining capabilities that automate the role creation process by analyzing user access data and creating roles based on common access patterns.
- Risk-based authentication is a method of authentication that uses risk factors, such as user behaviour and location, to determine the level of authentication required. Identity analytics solutions can help organizations implement risk-based authentication by analyzing user behaviour data and adjusting authentication requirements based on risk factors.
Solution: Okta Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication provides risk-based authentication capabilities that analyze user behaviour data and adjust authentication requirements based on risk factors.
- Access anomaly detection is the process of detecting anomalous access patterns that may indicate a security threat. Identity analytics solutions can help organizations implement access anomaly detection by analyzing user access data and identifying access patterns that deviate from normal behaviour.
Solution: RSA NetWitness provides access anomaly detection capabilities that analyze user access data and identify access patterns that deviate from normal behaviour, indicating a potential security threat.
- Segregation of duties (SoD) is the process of separating conflicting duties among users to prevent fraud and errors. Identity analytics solutions can help organizations automate the SoD process by analyzing user access data and identifying conflicting duties among users.
Solution: SAP Access Control provides SoD capabilities that automate the process of identifying and managing conflicting duties among users.
- Compliance reporting is the process of generating reports that demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements and internal policies. Identity analytics solutions can help organizations automate compliance reporting by analyzing user access data and generating reports that demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements and internal policies.
Solution: Netwrix Auditor provides compliance reporting capabilities that automate the process of generating reports that demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements and internal policies.
- Threat hunting is the process of proactively searching for security threats that may have evaded traditional security controls. Identity analytics solutions can help organizations implement threat hunting by analyzing user behaviour data and identifying potential security threats.
Solution: Exabeam provides threat-hunting capabilities that analyze user behaviour data and identify potential security threats that may have evaded traditional security controls.
In summary, IAM identity analytics is a critical component of any organization’s security posture. It enables organizations to detect security threats, prevent data breaches, and comply with regulatory requirements. The top 10 IAM identity analytics use cases discussed in this article are user behaviour analysis, privileged user monitoring, access certification, identity governance, role mining, risk-based authentication, access anomaly detection, segregation of duties, compliance reporting, and threat hunting. There are various solutions available in the market that can help organizations implement these use cases, depending on their specific needs and requirements.