Identity Management Challenge

By Author: sherry roberts
Total Articles: 99
Comment this article

Introduction
Today’s ongoing relentless security challenges and stringent security mandates demands a technology platform that can deliver practical, flexible, and cost-effective solutions. Identity management is the process of employing the emerging technologies so as to manage information regarding the identity of users and also control access to the company resources (Aitoro, 2008). Most organizations feel confident regarding their identity management security because they already protect the perimeter of their organizations. These companies are partly right and about half of the threats that are facing businesses today are internal. Those insiders who have privileged account tend to pose a greater risk because they hold the keys to the castle and also have the endless opportunity of sabotaging the organization from inside. Identity Management Challenge
Identity management challenges
Identity management involves controls to prevent, correct and detect harmful events and steps too; identify a user, prove or authenticate the user is who he says is, and account for what a user does. Effective identity management ...
... is an essential component for the secure and safe delivery of online services and information. As organizations are extending online delivery of services and data across departments, organizations, and jurisdictional boundaries, they should trust that they can authenticate and identify the business customers, and employees using them. The traditional methods of identity management such as documents do not work in the online world (Smith & McKeen 2011). Organizations are establishing their identity management practices, and IT managers are looking for holistic identity management practices that can simplify the access to multiple services.
The business climate tends to be changing with competition from different sources, mobile workforce, and globalization (Aitoro, 2008). Thus, it is necessary for organizations to be flexible with how they work with people should, work in ways that they have not before. Identity management is a fundamental piece in enabling business transformation. Effective identity management in collaboration with security is a means that organizations can balance their flexibility needs and risk and make appropriate business decisions as they continue to be more digital, mobile, and global.
Some of the identity management risks include identity theft, reputational loss from information loss or theft, regulatory and privacy noncompliance. Also, financial loss of partners and clients lose trust in the organization’s ability to protect information. Despite all advances in identity management technology, identity management continuous to be a challenge. Organizations are still struggling with how to manage access to critical systems.
One of the challenges with identity management is complexity. A major challenge is that the complexity of information technology tends to be increasing where there are more applications and more types of resources and applications that employee’s access (Lee, 2003). There are more people accessing systems and perform more critical stuff and moving systems to the cloud; thus, their roles are getting more complex. Organizations tend to have a difficult time with the task of figuring out precise job roles and being able to associate the roles with the appropriate levels of access to resources. Managing the user entitlements and identities tend to be increasingly complex, and identity management in an organization is becoming fragmented and siloed.
Another challenge with identity management is user authentication. A foundation for successful identity management is good authentication. Today, most organizations are still using password and username combination in vetting access (Smith & McKeen 2011). When considering the recent attacks such as the case of a breach in LinkedIn and Last.fm which did expose millions of passwords and usernames, it is clear that passwords are not a secure way of controlling accounts. We do not expect passwords to disappear anytime soon because most of the stronger authentication methods are not gaining traction in the market.
Another challenge is the legal framework. As information technology managers are working towards ensuring safety, the available technology, legal frameworks, and standards do not provide enough support. Despite identity management being more about technology, the tools may be useful in many aspects of the lifecycle that include authentication, audit and analytics, administration, and authorization (Smith & McKeen 2011).

Carolyn Morgan is the author of this paper. A senior editor at Melda Research in nursing writing services if you need a similar paper you can place your order for a custom research paper from medicine essay writing.

Author is associated with MeldaResearch.Com which is a global Custom Essay Writing and Term Paper Writing Company. If you would like help in Research Papers and Term Paper Help you can visit Custom Writing Service