5 Reasons to Automate Identity Lifecycle Management

An automated identity lifecycle management system helps companies streamline their processes and become more efficient. In this article, we'll explore the various benefits of automating ILM and how Zluri can help your business do so.

As an IT manager, you often face the risk of former employees retaining access to corporate resources after their departure. This security risk can lead to data breaches and compliance issues.

For instance, consider a scenario where a sales manager leaves your organization but still retains access to the customer relationship management (CRM) system. This individual could download sensitive customer data or disrupt the system, leading to significant business risks and legal repercussions.

It is important to implement efficient identity lifecycle management to address such challenges. This process helps you manage the digital identities of your employees, contractors, partners, and customers. It involves tracking these individuals' evolving relationships and access privileges as they interact with the organization and adapting digital identities accordingly.

Identity Lifecycle Management (ILM) will ensure that access rights are automatically updated based on an employee's current status within the company. This means that when an employee's role changes or they leave the company, their access rights are automatically adjusted or revoked, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access and enhancing overall security.

Let's learn more about identity lifecycle management.

Key Phases of Identity Lifecycle Management

ILM involves managing the entire lifecycle of an individual's identity, from creation and initial provisioning to maintenance and eventual removal or deprovisioning.

There are several key phases of ILM:

• Creating Identities

The process of creating a new employee's digital identity is an essential step in the identity lifecycle management process. During this phase, HR gathers relevant personal information from the employee and uses it to create their digital identity in an HRMS tool. This digital identity is typically associated with a role or title within the organization and is used to manage access to various systems and resources.

• Onboarding

After a new employee's digital identity has been created in HR's software, it is also vital to ensure that it is created within the IT infrastructure. One way to efficiently and securely manage digital identity creation and maintenance is through integrated HRIS tools with IT systems. When these tools are integrated, creating a new employee's digital identity in the HRIS tool can be automatically imported into the IT software.

• Monitoring, Reporting, and Maintaining

In the third phase of the identity lifecycle management process, monitoring access levels is critical to ensure that no accounts have more or fewer privileges than they should. This helps prevent security breaches and ensures that the system operates smoothly. In addition, reporting on identities and access allows you to demonstrate compliance with security standards and prove that the system is being used appropriately.

Ongoing access maintenance is also crucial during this phase, as it helps to update access levels as roles or responsibilities change within the organization.

• Offboarding

Offboarding is the final phase of identity lifecycle management and is essential to maintaining security within an organization. When an employee leaves the company, it is essential to revoke their access to any resources and deprovision their identity in a timely, complete, and secure manner.

It helps to prevent ex-employees from retaining access to the organization's resources, which can be a potential security threat. Further, your department's responsibility is to ensure that offboarding is carried out correctly to protect the organization's data and systems.

In this article, we will explore the reasons behind automating identity lifecycle management.

5 Reasons To Automate Identity Lifecycle Management

Below mentioned are the top 5 reasons highlighting the need to automate identity lifecycle management.

1: Manually managing identities is time consuming

Managing user identities and access in any organization can be incredibly time-consuming. This is particularly true when employees join, change roles within the tenure, or leave the company. Each stage requires precise adjustments to what systems and data the employee can access, which, if done manually, demands considerable time and effort from IT teams.

Thus, automating identity lifecycle management streamlines these processes by reducing the manual work involved and minimizing the scope for errors. An automated system can rapidly adjust access rights based on predefined rules aligned with each role within the company.

For example, when a new marketing manager is hired, the system automatically grants access to the marketing department's cloud storage, email lists, and analytics tools without the IT manager intervening manually for each service. This saves time and enhances security and compliance across the organization's IT environment.

2: Inadequate collaboration and communication

Streamlining collaboration and communication between departments is crucial, considering the hectic process of coordinating with the HR department.

For example, when a new employee joins the company, HR must communicate this information to the IT department so they can create user accounts and grant access to the required apps. This process is time-consuming and prone to errors when done manually.

Moreover, miscommunications can lead to delays in account setup or incorrect access permissions, which can frustrate new employees and reduce their productivity from the start.

Companies can eliminate many of these challenges by automating identity lifecycle management. Automation software can be integrated with HR systems to automatically trigger user account creation, modification, or deletion based on HR updates.

This means when HR adds a new employee to their system, the IT department's systems are instantly notified, and the necessary user accounts are created automatically with the correct access rights. This seamless interaction speeds up the process and reduces the likelihood of errors.

Furthermore, automated systems provide a consistent method of communication that doesn't rely on back-and-forth emails or phone calls. This reduces the workload of both IT and HR teams, allowing them to focus on more strategic tasks rather than administrative coordination. This leads to more efficient operations and a smoother workflow, enhancing overall productivity and employee satisfaction.

3: Inefficient access management

When businesses handle access management manually, the process often involves significant administrative effort and is prone to human error. For instance, manually adding, removing, or updating user permissions across multiple systems can consume valuable IT resources and lead to delays or inconsistencies.

This is particularly critical when an employee's role changes or leaves the company, as delayed updates can open up security vulnerabilities. Therefore, automating identity lifecycle management solves these issues by ensuring access rights are granted based on predefined policies that are consistently applied across all systems and users.

For example, consider a scenario where an employee is promoted within a company. An automated system can immediately update the employee's access permissions to match their new role, ensuring they have the necessary tools and data access to start contributing in their new capacity immediately.

Similarly, if an employee departs, the system can automatically revoke access, closing any potential security gaps.

Moreover, automated systems can handle complex access management tasks more efficiently. They can, for instance, manage access based on specific conditions such as time of day, employee location, or device security status, further enhancing the company's overall security posture.

4: Human error leading to security risks

One of the primary reasons for automating the identity lifecycle is the significant mitigation of security risks. Handling identities manually in a company not only consumes time but also opens the door to human error, which can lead to security vulnerabilities.

For example, consider a scenario where an employee leaves a company. In a manual process, deactivating this employee’s access rights might depend on a manager's memory to notify the IT department or be stuck in a lengthy bureaucratic process. During this delay, the ex-employee could still access confidential company data, posing a serious security threat.

Automated identity lifecycle management systems eliminate such risks by ensuring that their access rights are updated immediately when an employee's status changes (be it a departure, role change, or otherwise). This system prevents unauthorized access and ensures that the right individuals have the appropriate level of access at all times. This also reduces the window of opportunity for data breaches and other security issues, safeguarding the organization’s assets effectively.

5: Lack of end-to-end visibility

Automating ILM is becoming increasingly essential, and one significant reason is the lack of end-to-end visibility.

Imagine a scenario where an employee leaves a company. Without automated identity lifecycle management, the IT department may struggle to promptly revoke access to various systems and applications.

Even if the HR department informs IT about the departure, manual processes can lead to delays and oversights. This lack of visibility poses a significant security risk, as former employees could retain access to sensitive data long after leaving the organization.

Furthermore, consider the challenges posed by a growing workforce. As companies expand, the number of employees, contractors, and partners accessing company resources multiplies. Without automation, tracking who has access to what becomes a monumental task.

You may find yourself buried under a mountain of access requests, approvals, and audits, leading to inefficiencies and increased exposure to security threats. Automating identity lifecycle management addresses these challenges by providing end-to-end visibility into user access rights.

Once the reasons are clear, it is important to implement an automated ILM solution. Streamlining user identities and access rights management can help you and your team be more productive.

For example, a solution can handle tasks such as provisioning new users, revoking access for former employees, and updating permissions. This can save time and reduce the risk of errors, helping organizations be more efficient and effective in managing access to their resources.

One such solution is Zluri. Let's learn what Zluri offers.

Streamline Your Identity Lifecycle With Zluri

At Zluri, we understand the challenges you might face with identity lifecycle management, and our access management solution simplifies this crucial aspect of your IT infrastructure. To begin with, Zluri's integration capability enables seamless communication between HR processes and IT access control.

For example, when the HRMS system updates an employee's role or status, Zluri automatically adjusts their access permissions accordingly. This helps maintain security and compliance without manual oversight, making the entire process more efficient.

Now, let's learn how Zluri automates identity lifecycle management.

Zero-Touch Provisioning: Zluri's zero-touch provisioning automates the process of onboarding new users. When a new employee joins your company, Zluri automatically provides access to applications according to predefined roles and permissions. This saves time and ensures consistency in access rights, eliminating human error.

For example, when a new marketing manager is onboarded, Zluri will automatically grant them access to platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Google Analytics without IT having to manually intervene.

Access Requests: Zluri offers an access request solution that streamlines the process of requesting and approving access to various systems and applications. Employees can request access directly through Slack, and approvers or your admin can approve or deny these requests based on the organization's policies.

This process is tracked and logged, providing an audit trail that enhances security and compliance.

For instance, if a team member needs access to a project management tool for a new assignment, they simply submit a request through Zluri, and the appropriate manager can approve it with just a click.

Secure Deprovisioning: When an employee leaves the company or changes roles, Zluri securely revokes their access to sensitive systems and data. This minimizes the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access. Zluri can be configured to automatically remove user access based on HR updates or manual input, ensuring that only current authorized users have access to critical information.

Access Beyond SCIM Apps: While many access management systems are limited to SCIM (System for Cross-domain Identity Management) compliant applications, Zluri goes beyond SCIM apps. Zluri also provides the capability to manage and control access to non-SCIM applications.

This is particularly useful for organizations that use legacy systems or specialized software not covered by SCIM. The platform uses a combination of API integrations and agent-based methods to ensure comprehensive coverage across all your applications.

In addition, Zluri provides in-depth analytics that help you gain a comprehensive view of identity usage and patterns within an organization. This means that you can easily track and analyze who accesses what data.

If you want to learn more about how Zluri can revolutionize your company's identity lifecycle management, don't hesitate to book a demo with us today!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1: What are privileged accounts?

A privileged account gives more access and special powers compared to regular accounts. These accounts can belong to employees, contractors, vendors, auditors, or even machines and apps.

2: What is user provisioning?

User provisioning encompasses creating, maintaining, updating, and removing a user's digital identity and access permissions across various platforms simultaneously, be it on-premises, in the cloud, or within a hybrid infrastructure.

3: What does automated access review mean?

Automated access reviews streamline the periodic assessment of IT privileges, enabling organizations to swiftly detect and eliminate unnecessary permissions. These reviews are pivotal in mitigating the risks associated with overprivileged users, safeguarding data privacy, and fortifying security measures.

4: What is access certification?

Access certification simplifies the process of assessing a user's access rights. It involves a third-party validation to affirm the ongoing necessity of granted privileges within a specified timeframe. Typically integrated within identity security platforms or access review tools, access certification ensures streamlined management of user access privileges.