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What is Identity and Access Management?

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sammy kelvin
What is Identity and Access Management?

Meaning of identity and access management

Identity and access management (IAM) refers to the policies and tools used by IT departments to ensure that people and entities have the appropriate level of access to the organization’s technical resources. IAM systems are technology solutions to securely manage digital identities and their access to various applications and systems.

IAM systems manage people and also other kinds of identities, such as software (apps or programs), and hardware (such as IoT devices).

IAM systems perform two key tasks:

  • Authenticating that the entity is who it purports to be. When you enter a username and password into a website, the website authenticates you by checking its database to see if your username and password matches what is in the database. This is a form of authentication, albeit a less secure method than modern authentication.

  • Authorizing the entity for the appropriate level of access to resources. Authorization is the process of checking what access the authenticated user is allowed to have to technical resources and ensuring only that access. For example, if you log into a content management system as an editor you are allowed to make changes to content, but you are not allowed to make changes to the user accounts or add new users.

How authentication and authorization work in IAM systems

IAM systems are an important element of cybersecurity because they are designed to perform the key function of providing secure access to enterprise resources.

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