Imagine this scenario – If you are the CEO of a mid-sized organization with branches in different continents and three thousand employees, how efficiently could you monitor logins?
Perhaps, on a bad day, an employee would have lost their Smartphone or the paper on which they wrote the password.
In such a case, would you identify one illegal or criminal login from all the 3000 logins that day?
This is why Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions will become increasingly prominent in 2020 for businesses to protect their interests and sensitive data from theft and violation.
While decentralized identity is yet to become a full-blown practice, passwords are still the prime source for protecting data, and IoT devices are continuously being hacked. In this scenario, we have yet to find a universal solution to manage online identities in the government and the private sector.
Since the IAM space is continuously evolving, organizations identify new trends in Identity and Access Management to minimize data breaches, meet regulatory requirements, and manage user identities to the utmost extent.
In this rapidly changing business scenario, here are upcoming trends that promise to revolutionize the IAM sector:
1) Adapting Biometrics
According to Global Market Insights, the global biometric market will reach an estimated value of USD 50 billion by the end of 2024. Perhaps one of the rapidly emerging trends in the IAM sector, biometrics like retinal scans, facial recognition systems, and fingerprints are highly preferred for ensuring authorized users in networked systems. While this might come across as a fool-proof strategy, this technology has a security risk.
With various types of cyber-attacks possible, biometric information can be stolen and used for fraudulent operations. While a regular password can be changed if compromised, a user’s biometrics can’t be changed and permanent.
To counterbalance this threat, the future trend would involve IAM, which relies on biometric data, to get an additional layer of security for protecting the biometric information.
2) Blockchain
Blockchain is an ideal solution for protecting biometric data. It has grown from being valued at USD 706 million to an estimated USD 60 million by 2024. Blockchain offers features like transparency, reliability, and integrity, making it a popular choice for ensuring data protection in both the public and private sectors.
When discussing Blockchain in the context of IAM, two aspects that come into play are Audit trail and self-sovereign identity. Self-sovereign identity is the concept of an individual protecting their entire identity as their personal property rather than letting an organization or third-party provider manage it. This concept offers complete individual control over their identity data by keeping the individual’s information protected by encryption in a permanent blockchain across a distributed network system.
The Self-sovereign identity system aims to replace centralized identity providers and let each individual take control and decrypt the data only when required.
An audit trail records a user’s entire login history, access request, permission grants, changes performed, or engagement. This is helpful for an organization in monitoring activities and detecting fraud and also meets compliance requirements.
3) Single Sign-On Systems and MFA
While MFA is one of the most popular IAM practices, there is still plenty of scope for its improvement as data breaches still occur and cause substantial revenue losses. Adaptive Authentication is the advanced version of MFA, which relies on machine learning capabilities to detect malicious user behavior or illegal entry.
Adaptive Authentication pulls in all user login details in terms of login time, device, location, browser, and other data, which helps analyze a login attempt’s authenticity. Based on the analysis, if a login attempt turns out to be fishy, the system will ask the user to fill in an MFA to be authenticated.
Another popular IAM industry trend is using a Single Sign-on (SSO System) with MFA, which helps users leverage a unified, singular set of credentials to gain access to networks, data, applications, the web, and the cloud.
4) IAM and the Internet of Things (IoT)
With the arrival of the Internet of Things (IoT), there is a massive requirement for Identity Access Management services. Whenever an IoT-based device is added to a network, the need to mitigate security risk increases. According to a report developed by Microsoft, IoT is increasingly being used across all major sectors, and by 20201, 94% of businesses will use IoT.
Hence, the current priority is to ensure secure identity access management on these IoT devices to restrict hackers’ entry into the network. Devices that pose a threat could include smart TVs, security cameras, and smart bulbs.
Another technology that could be a breakthrough is working on IAM systems, which require the system to authenticate a user’s access through numerous devices.
Also, in numerous cases, securing IoT devices would be achieved by embedding the device identities in the processing chip and being an integral part of the hardware.
5) Artificial Intelligence in IAM
An aspect of Identity Management, Context-based identity, is responsible for comparing data about a user who needs to be vetted to authenticate an identity. This data includes numerous behavioral patterns like physical location, IP address, usage, preferences, and machine address.
Leveraging AI programming algorithms for data mining helps discover data patterns that are extremely helpful in reducing fraud and identifying risks. This technique has been highly useful in banking systems across the globe.
6) Identity Access Management for Cloud Services
Since the cloud is in great demand, organizations have shifted to cloud services to provide advantages such as efficiency, scalability, and flexibility. While the cloud brings many benefits, a few security concerns should not be ignored.
Employing a secure digital strategy like Cloud User Access Management Software, also known as User Access Management (UAM), is essential. Through this system, organizations can create authorized user logins to access crucial data and applications.
Legacy Applications Vs Modern Applications Explained!
Legacy application modernization helps create new business value from existing, aging applications by upgrading them with modern functionalities, features, and capabilities.
However, modernizing can be successful only when the organization has a well-thought-out plan.
Comparing the characteristics of legacy and modern applications helps gain insight into what must change in the legacy applications during the application modernization process.
Here are some prominent differences between Legacy and Modern Applications:
| Legacy Applications | Modern Applications |
| Text-based User Interface (TUI) – novice users need to learn and use | Graphical user interface (GUI) is user-friendly, intuitive, and familiar |
| Hidden tree-like hierarchy | Visible menus and tree-like hierarchy |
| Fixed path navigation | Point-and-click navigation |
| Integration with other systems is complex and costly | Simplified integration with other applications including Microsoft Word and Excel |
| Monolithic applications – for any small change, a new version of the entire application needs to be rolled out | Multitier application architecture – a specific layer can be modified or added, instead of reworking the entire application |
| Compatibility restricted by device type such as a 5250 terminal | Runs on all types of devices, including personal computers, smartphones, and portable devices |
| Declining skill base and diminishing vendor support | Readily available skills and multi-vendor support |
| Requires specific expertise for maintenance and upgrades | Widely known development languages and tools |
How we at Veritis aim to help you
Veritis’ approach to IAM services and solutions is built on core activities: Access Management, Identity Management, Access Governance, and PAM. We help you elevate your organization’s goals towards digital transformation and help develop data strategies in line with revenue maximization and achieve customer satisfaction.
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