Identity and Access Management

Identity and Access management (IAM) is the process of managing the identity of people or systems and their permissions on systems.

IAM is a three-way process. In an IAM solution, users or systems first announce who they are (identification – they provide their name), then their claimed account is checked (authentication – they provide for instance a password, which is checked), and then the account is granted the permissions related to their identity and the groups they belong to (authorization – they are allowed into the system).

Most systems have a way to connect identities and their permissions. For instance, the kernel of an operating system owns an administration of users and a list of user rights that describes which identities are allowed to read, write, modify, or delete files.

IAM is not only used on the operating system level, but also in applications, databases, or other systems. Often these systems have their own stand-alone IAM system, which leads to users logging in to each and every system they use. With Single sign-on (SSO), a user logs in once and is passed seamlessly, without an authentication prompt, to applications configured with it. SSO provides user friendliness, but does not necessarily enhance security – when the main login credentials are known, an attacker gains access to all systems. SSO is typically implemented using LDAP, Kerberos, or Microsoft Active Directory. 

Federated identity management extends SSO above the enterprise level, creating a trusted authority for digital identities across multiple organizations. In a federated system, participating organizations share identity attributes based on agreed-upon standards, facilitating authentication from other members of the federation and granting appropriate access to systems.

Users can be authenticated in one of three ways:

  • Something you know, like a password or PIN
  • Something you have, like a bank card, a token or a smartphone
  • Something you are, like a fingerprint or an iris scan

Many systems only use a username/password combination (something you know), but more and more systems use multi-factor authentication, where at least two types of authentication are required. An example is an ATM machine, where a bank card is needed (something you have) and a PIN (something you know).

Typically, users are members of one or more groups (typically named after their roles in the organization) and, instead of granting permissions to individual users, these groups are granted permissions. And since groups can be nested (a group is member of another group), this so-called Role Based Access Control (RBAC) is very powerful.


This entry was posted on Friday 01 April 2016

Earlier articles

Quantum computing

Security at cloud providers not getting better because of government regulation

The cloud is as insecure as its configuration

Infrastructure as code

DevOps for infrastructure

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

(Hyper) Converged Infrastructure

Object storage

Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV)

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

What's the point of using Docker containers?

Identity and Access Management

Using user profiles to determine infrastructure load

Public wireless networks

Supercomputer architecture

Desktop virtualization

Stakeholder management

x86 platform architecture

Midrange systems architecture

Mainframe Architecture

Software Defined Data Center - SDDC

The Virtualization Model

What are concurrent users?

Performance and availability monitoring in levels

UX/UI has no business rules

Technical debt: a time related issue

Solution shaping workshops

Architecture life cycle

Project managers and architects

Using ArchiMate for describing infrastructures

Kruchten’s 4+1 views for solution architecture

The SEI stack of solution architecture frameworks

TOGAF and infrastructure architecture

The Zachman framework

An introduction to architecture frameworks

How to handle a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack

Architecture Principles

Views and viewpoints explained

Stakeholders and their concerns

Skills of a solution architect architect

Solution architects versus enterprise architects

Definition of IT Architecture

What is Big Data?

How to make your IT "Greener"

What is Cloud computing and IaaS?

Purchasing of IT infrastructure technologies and services

IDS/IPS systems

IP Protocol (IPv4) classes and subnets

Infrastructure Architecture - Course materials

Introduction to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

Fire prevention in the datacenter

Where to build your datacenter

Availability - Fall-back, hot site, warm site

Reliabilty of infrastructure components

Human factors in availability of systems

Business Continuity Management (BCM) and Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)

Performance - Design for use

Performance concepts - Load balancing

Performance concepts - Scaling

Performance concept - Caching

Perceived performance

Ethical hacking

The first computers

Open group ITAC /Open CA Certification


Recommended links

Ruth Malan
Gaudi site
Esther Barthel's site on virtualization
Eltjo Poort's site on architecture


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The postings on this site are my opinions and do not necessarily represent CGI’s strategies, views or opinions.

 

Copyright Sjaak Laan