Keeping Your Identities Secure – Why Does It Matter?


February 3, 2022

You cannot have a smoothly operating business without successful identity governance. Think about some of the key aspects of an effective organisation: systems that are both secure and accessible where needed, minimal risk of security breach, operations that run effortlessly, and automations that reduce time and money spent on manual labour. All these qualities hinge on having an effective Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) solution.

How Could Ineffective IGA Practices Be Putting Your Business At Risk?

IGA involves two key areas:

  1. Lifecycle management of users and their access.
  2. Continuously checking that the right people have access to the right thing to do their job, and nothing more.

IGA affects the everyday operations of workers at all levels of your organisation. If processes are too complicated and long-winded, employees will inevitably find their own workarounds to maximise their productivity. This could be as common as bad password hygiene, such as using the same password for multiple systems, or in a more concerning example, helping a co-worker to skip a lengthy log-on process by offering their account credentials to view a file. These shortcuts present huge security risks, whether via ignorance or malevolent intent.

As an example of the practical ramifications of ineffective security practices, take the case of the Colonial Pipeline Attack in May 2021. A single misplaced password led to a 6-day complete halt in operations for the largest refined oil pipeline in the US.

The ability and willingness of employees to learn and adapt to new security solutions and authorisation processes is not limitless. Instead of benefiting the employees and organisation, this could lead to more delays, or even mistakes in operation.

In addition to the security risks presented by multiple misaligned systems being used, user experience also suffers. Having to jump from app to app anytime you need to get something verified becomes tiresome and needlessly presents extra obstacles to getting things done.

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What Does A Good Governance Solution Do To Help?

So, what if there was an Identity Governance and Administration tool that was hosted natively on a system your company already uses? For example, businesses who are already using ServiceNow should consider ServiceNow IGA for a seamlessly integrated operating system that aligns with what you already have in place. Benefits of this include:

  • A familiar user interface, saving your users the time and difficulty of having to adapt to a system they aren’t already comfortable with.

  • An IGA solution that works as a seamless extension to the system already in place, rather than a clunky addition. This eliminates the issue of ad hoc fixes based on layering new processes over ill-suited legacy systems, leading to inconsistent protocols and increasing the risk of data mismanagement.

  • Centralising your system around a single portal, which eliminates the problem of navigating between various apps. This allows employees to be productive, satisfied with the security of potentially sensitive documents and data they are handling.

  • Clear and thorough reporting for your identity governance – if you can easily see any problem areas, you can quickly address these issues without disrupting ongoing tasks.

  • The capability to efficiently automate processes using an operating system that is already familiar. This minimises the risk of human error or malignant intent jeopardising the safety of your identities.

To keep your identities and data secure, you need to be investing in IGA as a priority. Identity security is not a job that can be completed and forgotten about, it is an essential part of the long-term functionality of your organisation.

A successful IGA solution should allow you to automate processes and reporting, minimise complex sign-on processes, and centralise access in a single portal. Factors such as these all contribute to optimising user experience and time efficiency, minimising security risk, and reducing cost in the long-term.

If you use ServiceNow and want to learn more about how their Identity Governance and Administration could seamlessly integrate with your current processes, download our factsheet.

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Download the Factsheet