Inside the Briefcase
The Access and Identity Market Is Growing: Here’s Why
January 28, 2016 No CommentsFeatured article by Dean Wiech, managing director at Tools4ever
Throughout the past few years there has been major growth in the IAM market, with the United States leading in implementations. According to a recent study completed by Research and Markets, the identity and access management market is expected to grow from $9.16 billion in 2014 to $18.30 billion in 2019. This represents a compound annual growth Rate (CAGR) of 14.85 percent from 2014 to 2019.[1]” What is driving this growth?
One of the main drivers is because businesses of all sizes are realizing the benefits of IAM solutions and are able to implement them without the huge investment of time or money. Even smaller business, who in the past could not afford to implement large enterprise solutions, can now receive the same type of benefits as larger organizations. This is because many IAM solutions can now be implemented in a phased approach.
Being able to implement just the modules they need, organizations are able to resolve their biggest problems first then phase in components they consider to be secondary as their time and budgets permit. It also means that they can pick and choose which modules they want to implement and in what order. This allows the company to implement what they need without having to pay for modules that are not necessary.
While as a whole, the IAM market has been growing, there have been certain areas and solutions that have, in particular, shown great growth. What are these and why have organizations of all sizes been implementing them?
Single Sign-on with Multi-factor Authentication
There continues to be an increasing amount of stolen data, either from hackers or from internal employees. While organizations want to ensure security of their network, in some instances this is actually required by the government. Standards, such as Sarbanes-Oxley, now require an organization to meet several different security requirements, such as ensuring the safety of secure customer and internal data. All of this can be pretty difficult without some type of IAM solution.
The old school way of handling password security was to require users to use complex passwords for each system. Companies realized, though, that this can actually increase security risks. This is because to remember seven or more complex passwords, which is usually the case for most people, users will write them down and keep them near their desk.
To mitigate this issue, solutions such as Single Sign-on (SSO) are implemented, which can increase security and convenience regarding the overall process. As many already know, SSO allows an end user to simply enter a single set of credentials, and, thereafter, are automatically authenticated each time they access one of their systems or applications. While this adds extra security to the process by ensuring users aren’t writing down their passwords, some organizations take things one step further with two-factor or multi-factor authentication. These solutions allow for convenience while also drastically increasing security of the network, which is why there has been such a large increase in implementations.
Two-factor authentication (2FA) can replace the regular Windows login credentials with a card and a PIN code. So, a user has to present two forms of identification to be authenticated in the system. This type of authentication uses something the person already has and a PIN that they know. While this increases security it does not hinder the efficiency of the employee.
Most SSO solutions support many card formats, from physical access cards to ID cards, ensuring that your users get direct access to the applications and the data they need when and where they need it. Organizational leaders know that many of their employees already have an ID badge, utilized to gain entrance to the building or as a time card, so implementing this authentication does not hinder efficiency.
As technology advances, there have been more advanced methods of authentication, such as the use of biometrics. These methods can be combined as a second or third form of authentication in combination with a password. For example, some companies use employee fingerprints or facial recognition in combination with a password, which drastically increases security. There has been major growth in this area, especially as technology advances and more sophisticated methods of authentication are used.
Rise of Cloud IAM Solutions
There also continues to be an increase in the amount of cloud IAM solutions that organizations have implemented. This is because of the fact that not only has there been a major increase in availability of cloud applications, but also the number of remote employees has increased — who need to use cloud applications for their work responsibilities. Organizational leaders soon realize that managing accounts for cloud applications can be a headache. Just as with in-house applications, system administrators need to be able to efficiently provision, update and disable accounts, as well as manage passwords to ensure the network is secure.
In a similar fashion to how automated account management solutions automate, the process for in-house applications also can be set up to seamlessly work with cloud applications, such as Office 365, Google Apps, TOPdesk, etc. This allows an HR employee or manager, who is creating accounts for a new employee, to easily check off which accounts need to be created in a form for both in-house and cloud applications and the accounts will automatically be provisioned in near real time. This also allows a manager to easily disable the accounts of an employee who has left the organization, which ensures security of the network and data.
As more employees are now working remotely, it is important that their cloud applications and access are quickly provisioned so that they are able to complete work.
Overall, there has been and continues to be tremendous growth in the IAM market. Organizations in all industries are realizing the benefits of security and efficiency while also being able to implement because of the solutions being overall more affordable.
Dean Wiech is managing director at Tools4ever, a global provider of identity and access management solutions. Dean has worked with businesses, educational entities and municipalities for more than 20 years, helping them identify solutions that make their businesses and operations more secure, efficient and easier to manage. He is responsible for Tools4ever’s US operations, and has written dozens of articles about identity and access management, security, IT audits, strategy, BYOD, the cloud and managing IT solutions for small businesses to enterprise systems.
