Category

Identity and Access Management

Category

The employee lifecycle is an HR model that identifies the different stages an employee goes through during his/her stint at an organization. Employee lifecycle management, therefore, involves the steps taken by HR in optimizing the flow of the cycle. Typically, the employee lifecycle involves the following stages: recruiting, onboarding, training and development, retention, and offboarding. 

In modern organizations, where the employee is also a user (of one or more applications), a similar user lifecycle begins at the onboarding stage and continues until the employee exits the organization.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has been effective in the USA since 1996. 

The Act actually has five different section titles, namely Health Insurance Reform, Administrative Simplification, Tax-Related Health Provisions, Application and Enforcement of Group Health Plan Requirements, and Revenue Offsets – however, the mention of ‘HIPAA Compliance’ most often refers to compliance to the second title – Administration Simplification. 

Technology users today are spoilt for choice when it comes to the types of devices and the variety of platforms through which they can stay connected to work and social groups. They can access their accounts from simply anywhere and at any time, as long as they can authenticate their identities.

However, the process of authentication as we know it has remained largely static – the user provides the system with their credentials at the time of access, the system matches it against its database of user data and provides the user access to the network on successfully validating their credentials.

Privileged Identity Management (PIM) refers to the control and monitoring of access and activity involving privileged user identities within an organization. Privileged identities include those of superusers or super control users such as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Information Officer (CIO), Database Administrator (DBA), and other top management officials.

Usually, such accounts are given access to all applications and data within an organization, along with the highest levels of permissions. However, many times, such unlimited access has been the cause for data breaches. When an organization’s data is compromised from a privileged user or their account, it is known as Privilege Abuse or Privileged User Abuse.

Advanced Server Access is a relatively new aspect of identity and access management system for the cloud. In fact, it fits better under the umbrella of privileged access management (PAM). PAM is built on top of IdPs and ADs, which are crucial for identity and access management for on-prem networks. By being used in conjunction with ADs, PAM has been able to successfully provide enhanced control over identity for administrators and other privileged users.

What is PAM?

Privileged access management helps to secure and control privileged access to critical assets on an on-premise network. With PAM, the credentials of admin accounts are placed inside a virtual vault to isolate the accounts from any risk. Once the credentials are placed in the repository, admins are required to go through the PAM system every time they need access to the critical areas of a network. For every single login, their footprint is logged and authenticated. After every cycle, the credentials are reset, ensuring that admins have to create a new log for every access request.

Social login is a form of single sign-on, where users are allowed to log into an application or website using one of their existing social media account credentials. A social login, therefore, eliminates the need for users to register on yet another online platform – saving them the need to remember yet another set of credentials.

If you are a business, you may have noticed that a social login option on your online platform has had a positive effect on the number of registrations you receive. If you are an individual user, you may have found the option to either “Sign up” or “Login with Facebook/Google” and felt relieved that you were able to access the platform in just a few seconds by choosing the latter. But have you ever thought of how secure this method of login really is?

Let’s admit it: schools and universities today are not what they used to be back when we were growing up. Digitization has swept over almost every aspect of educational institutions. Classrooms have become “smart”, with blackboards being replaced or supplemented by LED screens. Students can simply log in to portals from where they can access information about grades, access lessons from learning apps, and more. Teachers don’t use physical attendance registers today; they mark the daily attendance of their students on tablets – data from which triggers automatic, customized messages to the parents of students who are absent from class.