Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a vital part of any organization’s security. Quite often, it is overlooked or not deemed important enough to invest in. It is very important for all employees, new and existing, to be given the proper access to the resources they need, and to be restricted from accessing resources they do not need, in order to perform their job. If the wrong access is given, an employee can either accidentally or intentionally change or destroy company data. Furthermore, a weak IAM policy leaves an organization open to external attacks. IAM is one of the most important, if not the most important, part of computer security.
There are three steps to Identity and Access Management: Identification, Authentication,
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Passwords should not contain dictionary words. Most passwords must be at least eight characters long and use two or more of the above character types. Longer and more complex passwords make discovering them more difficult for a hacker. Even with these safeguards, there is still a problem. CEO of Biometrics Signature ID Jeff Maynard stated that “armed with that information, users can access everything from medical records and bank accounts to credit card information, emails, and other sensitive information. The problem, of course, is that anyone armed with the same login credentials can also access the same information” (1). This is what happened with both the Sony Pictures attack in 2014 and the Target breach in 2013 that compromised their customer’s credit and debit cards.
The second authentication type, something you are, usually involves some type of biometric information about an individual. This can be a fingerprint, an eye scan, voice print, or facial recognition. Fingerprint scans allow for positive identification with a low probability of misidentification. They also serve to both identify and authenticate a user. Eye scanners involve a scan of a person’s iris, or the blood vessels in a person’s eye in order to make a positive identification. Both methods are usually used for access to physical assets. Both eye
Identification is the means through which a user is associated with and gains access to an account. The most common form of identification in use with computer systems is through the use of a username. Other systems use Common Access Cards (CAC), smart cards, or tokens combined with a pin code that allow for access to a system. More complex, high security systems might use some form of biometric to associate a user with an account and permission set. Biometrics include: fingerprint, iris scan, facial scan etc.. something that is unique to the particular person that cannot be easily altered. Identification allows for the tracking
The specific purpose of this paper is to describe the authentication process and to describe how this and other information security considerations will affect the design and development process for new information systems.
Individual users play an important role in any form of institution or organization but concerns are raised about the security. The network administrators clearly lay down a set of rules, regulations and protocols that an individual user has to agree accordingly upon which part of the resources and what class of service that the user can obtain.
Biometrics are important to not only information systems, but to information security as a subject. Today, most information is kept secure via ID cards or secret information, such as a PIN, password, pattern, etc., the downside to this type of security is the lack of a failsafe (Ashok, Shivashankar and Mudiraj)! What would happen if an ID card was lost? Or a PIN, password or pattern was leaked to individuals who were not on a “need to know” basis”? This is where the importance of biometrics comes into play.
Company must also develop a clear structure for granting employees access to sensitive information. Not all employees need such data in order to fulfill their everyday job responsibilities. For those who need admission to sensitive information, a strong authentication mechanism must be developed, which cannot be bypassed. This will ensure that only authorized users are accessing compromising data.
The framework of security policy is defined to construct a structure by the help of which policy gaps can be identified in an easy manner. A system specific policy would assist to ensure that all employees and management comply with the policies. This is also used to maintain the confidentiality for user authentication would assist in the confidentiality aspect of security, maintain integrity (There are several limiting rules or constraints which are distinct in the relational data model and whose work is to maintain the data’s accuracy and maintain its integrity.), availability and authenticity of the system. Access controls are a collection of mechanisms that work together to create security architecture to protect the assets of an information system. One of the goals of access control is personal accountability, which is the mechanism that proves someone performed a computer activity at a specific point in time. So, the framework acts as the guideline
When a computer connects to a network and engages in communication with other computers, it is essentially taking a risk. Internet security involves the protection of a computer's Internet account and files from intrusion of an unknown user. Internet security has become an alarming issue for anyone connected to the net. This research paper argues the need for security over corporate intranets that have been dealing with the lack of security within the internet and the numerous attacks and malware threats that hackers use to breach security measures. A corporation uses a private computer network that uses Internet Protocol technologies to securely share any part of an organization's
Biometric Authentication refers to the usage of software that looks for physical markers to allow access to a system. Some of the most commonly used physical markers are fingerprints, face-recognition, voice-recognition, and iris-recognition (Williams & Sawyer, 2015). As no two humans are exactly alike biometics are less likely to be hacked, although it is not impossible.
In today’s IT world every organization has a responsibility to protect the information and sensitive data they have. Protecting data is not only responsibility of security and IT staff but every individual is involved in protecting the information. The risks to information security are not digital only, but it involves technology, people and process that an organization may have. These threats may represent the problems that are associated to complex and expensive solution, but doing nothing about these risks is not the solution.
Maintain strict proper ID access control policies, standards, and guidelines. Implementation of second-level identification authorization testing procedures for sensitive applications, data and systems
Information security is the protection of information against accidental or malicious disclosure, modification or destruction. Information is an important, valuable asset of IDI which must be managed with care. All information has a value to IDI. However, not all of this information has an equal value or requires the same level of protection. Access controls are put in place to protect information by controlling who has the rights to use different information resources and by guarding against unauthorised use. Formal procedures must control how access to information is granted and how such access is changed. This policy also mandates a standard for the creation of strong passwords, their protection and frequency of change.
Amit Kumar is an IDAM Subject Matter Expert (SME) , Architect and Information Security Specialist with over 13+ years of technology industry experience. His background consists of several Architectural , Technical Lead and Leadership roles wherein he led teams of varying size through the Planning, Design, Implementation, and Deployment phases of critical IDAM based infrastructure. He also has extensive hands-on experience in the Implementation, Configuration, and Maintenance of several highly complex systems in an Enterprise Level environment.
One of the main challenge organizations is facing is managing users in heterogeneous IT landscapes. Organizations are preferring the access control via role management (Franqueira, V. N. L et al., 2012). With the evolving responsibilities, the system landscape is becoming more and more complex and difficult to manage and track (SAP1, 2012). With SAP NetWeaver Identity Management (IdM), we can manage identities and their authorizations centrally in both SAP and non-SAP system landscapes. This comes with employee self-services and SAP BusinessObjects Access Control formerly GRC (Governance, risk management, and compliance) (SAP2, 2012) integration which helps in risk detection and mitigation and makes identity management more compliant. Using NetWeaver IdM, a highly customizable framework we can provide joint authentication for all business processes and a single sign-on as a secure identity management solution. Driving factors for implementation of Identity management include a decrease in operational cost, frequently evolving business processes with increasing complexity and inability to de-provision a user completely. Many challenges come from the desire to grant single-sign-on access to collections of resources that might have contradictory access-protection rules (Buell, D.A. et al., 2003). The functions of NetWeaver IdM include role management, Identity Virtualization, data synchronization, customized work-flows and approval process, password management, identity
Improved accuracy and improved convenience are two of the biggest benefits of biometric technology for personal identification. First, unlike passwords or PIN numbers, which can be used by anyone who knows the required information, biometrics looks at a
All access to government servers, network devices and maintenance areas of the government agency's data center will be role-based and defined through authentication at a minimum (Amsel, 1988). Access methods will require two-party authentication and for access to server operating systems and rack-mounted servers, biometrics will also be required. One of the most critical success factors to ensuring a high level of security and stability and to guard again social engineering threats is to create and maintain authentication methods that thwart illusionary and coercive-driven access attempts (Burgess, Canright, Engø-Monsen, 2004). By having several roles requires to gain access to data,