Full Paper Link: Click Here
I have been working in the Identity and Access Management field for about 18 years, and I can tell you that IAM has changed a lot since I started. When I began, I worked with some security products, and over the time, some of those products have disappeared from the market and replaced by new products. Some organizations are investing a lot in building their own IAM solutions because vendor products do not meet their needs or they do not get the timely support they need for their customers.
The security landscape has evolved dramatically. Organizations are moving to cloud or even multi-clouds environment that introduce new risks to their business. Traditional IAM solution are not sufficient to manage the new risks, so it was important to change IAM strategy as well to support the new business needs. In the past, Identity Management, Single Sign-On (SSO) and Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) were the key focus areas in IAM and only a few organizations were implementing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and Privileged Access Management (PAM) but now these are essential part of any IAM program.
So, the big question is "What is the future of IAM"?
I believe there are still many areas in IAM that need more attention or require more work. Below, I have highlighted some of these areas:
- Zero Trust Implementation (Continuous Authentication)
- Zero Standing Privileges
- Passwordless Authentication with Stronger MFA (Biometric/FIDO2)
- Cloud IAM
- Effective Approvals and User Access Reviews
- Privileged Access Management
- Non-Human Accounts Governance
- IAM for AI Agent
- Behavior and AI-Powered Monitoring, Alerting and Remediation
Apart from above areas, User Education and User Experience will always be our top priority as there's no security with poor user experience (Click Here). IAM is moving towards smarter and more secure models of digital identities and will continue to evolve.
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