What is IAM software?
Identity access management (IAM) is the set of processes and practices related to the registration, authorization, identification, and authentication of user access privileges. IAM is the standard operating procedure for any business providing a user-driven platform. Anyone who has ever registered for a website with a username and a password has taken part in the IAM process.
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How does IAM work?
In the digital world, identity access management contains a few core components:
- A database that stores all the digital identities, user-related information, and access privileges within a system
- Policies, processes, and supporting technology to verify users’ identities and grant access and permissions
- A system to record and audit an organization’s logs/access history
There are a number of approaches to authentication as part of identity access management. One approach would be
single sign-on (SSO), which creates a centralized identity service for related platforms to verify the identity of registered users. An example of this is when someone links their Gmail account to a platform like Monday.com, allowing them to log in through their email account instead of setting up a separate username or password.
However, many companies have begun instituting two-factor authentication (2FA) or
multi-factor authentication (MFA), which require users to have two or more pieces of digital authentication in order to gain access. This adds extra layers of security that hackers need to penetrate in order to get to a company’s data. MFA can help protect businesses from several common types of cyber attacks, including
phishing and keyloggers.
MFA examples include a username/password combination, a randomly-generated verification code, a message sent to the email account attached to the user’s account, and biometrics.
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