Most of the organizations are advancing towards the cloud-based environment. They are transferring their work either on the private or public cloud platforms through various vendors. But sometimes it is a challenging task for all the companies to keep the data safe and secure in the cloud. In the current scenario, the customer needs to face each program anywhere either on-premises or in the cloud.
What is Identity Access Management in Cloud Computing
The concept of identity in the cloud can refer to many things, but for the purpose of this discussion, we will focus on two main entities:
- users
- cloud resources.
IAM policies are sets of permission policies that can be attached to either users or cloud resources to authorize what they access and what they can do with it.
Roles of Identity Access Management in Cloud Security
IAM is crucial to protecting sensitive enterprise systems, assets, and information from unauthorized access or use. This represents the systematic management of any single identity and provides authentication, authorization, privileges, and roles of the enterprise boundaries.
The primary goal is to upgrade security and productivity by decreasing the total cost, repetitive tasks, and system downtime. Identity access management in cloud computing covers all types of users who can work with defined devices under unlike circumstances.
In a cloud system, the storage and processing of data are performed by organizations or with the help of third-party vendors. The service provider has to ensure that data and applications stored in the cloud are protected as well as the infrastructure is an insecure environment. Further, users need to verify that their credentials for authentication are secure.
There are many security issues that compromise data in the process of data access and storage in the cloud environment, especially in the case of data storage with the help of third-party vendors who themselves may be a malicious attacker. Though standards and best practices are available for overcoming such security problems, cloud service providers are reluctant in securing their network with the updated set of security standards.
Identity and access management is one of the best practices to measure cloud services. Presently, Identity and Access Management (IAM) provides effective security for cloud systems. IAM systems perform different operations for providing security in the cloud environment that includes authentication, authorization, and provisioning of storage and verification. IAM system guarantees the security of identities and attributes of cloud users by ensuring that the right persons are allowed in the cloud systems. IAM systems also help to manage access rights by checking if the right person with the right privileges is accessing information that is stored in cloud systems.
Currently, many organizations use Identity and Access Management systems to provide more security for sensitive information that is stored in the cloud environment.
How Identity Access Management can control Interactions with Data and Systems
IAM can move beyond simply allowing or blocking access to data and systems.
For example, IAM can:
- Restrict access to data: Specific roles can access only necessary parts of systems, databases, and information.
- Only allow view access: Users with such roles can only view data, they cannot add, update, or amend it.
- Only permit access on certain platforms: Users may have access to operational systems, but not on development, testing, or PROD platforms.
- Only allow access to create, amend, or delete data, not to transmit it: Some roles may not be able to send or receive data outside the system, meaning it cannot be exposed to other third parties and applications.
Based on a company’s specific requirements, there are many ways to implement IAM policies to define and enforce exactly how individual roles can access systems and data.
Why Identity Access Management is a Vital IT Enablement & Security Layer
IAM offers several advantages over all other traditional products. Below is the list to understand the few benefits of identity management in cloud computing:
- Enhanced Network Abilities: Identity access management (IAM) makes it simple in sharing the network capabilities with a complete grid of users who were connected with it.
- Support On-demand improvement: 24*7 hours support and monitoring can be provided based on need.
- Increase Overall Productivity: Cloud-based services are configured and hosted by service providers. As a result, many organizations can improve their overall productivity instead of worrying about the infrastructure.
- Centralized Management System: Clients can be able to manage all their services and programs at one place with the cloud-based services. Identity access management can be done with one click on a single dashboard.
Conclusion
IAM in the cloud security controls access to resources within that enterprise system by incorporating user policies and restrictions with the verified identity. This is undoubtedly a great way of controlling information about users on the network. It is possible to identify, manage, and control user identities across the entire system by setting up policies, roles, and access. This is definitely a highly intelligent way of handling the security of the uniqueness of an enterprise.
