6 Foundations of cyber risk
This chapter covers
- Fundamentals of access management
- Evaluating and prioritizing risk
- Continuously enhancing security measures
Identity and Access Management (IAM) is an important focus in mature cybersecurity practices. Effective IAM ensures that only authenticated and authorized individuals have access to critical data and systems, protecting organizations from both external and internal threats. This chapter looks at the core principles and practices of IAM, exploring how they can be implemented to secure an organization’s assets and data, and what metrics can be used to measure their effectiveness.
Identity management is the process of identifying individuals within a system and controlling their access to resources by associating user rights and restrictions with their established identity. This includes the entire lifecycle of identity, from creation, maintenance, and eventual deactivation. IAM is about ensuring the right people have the right access at the right times for the right reasons.
Access management complements identity management by defining and enforcing policies and controls to manage access to information. This involves authentication, which verifies the identity of users, and authorization, which ensures users have the necessary permissions to access specific resources.