Certain junctures in history have created unintended dichotomies: haves and have nots, protected and unprotected. In cybersecurity, COVID-19 has shown us whether an enterprise is well ahead of the digital transformation curve or woefully behind. Those who've transformed have also embraced a security approach that de-emphasizes perimeter defense and instead elevates identity.
Many organizations have rushed to provision IT services such as a virtual private network or other access controls to enable a virtual workforce, but identity is much more than merely providing access gateways to resources. Access without oversight merely increases the attack surface for an enterprise. Using identity well means that oversight — known as identity governance — must be in place to ensure that any access provided is useful, appropriate, and necessary.
This kind of wisdom is not mechanical, of course. Identity governance is more than identity management — merely managing accounts and their access, which, when done in a rushed, utilitarian manner, can grant unnecessary and dangerous access to sensitive data and resources. Thus, a short-sighted approach that focuses merely on access can do more long-term harm than short-term good. Identity governance uses a comprehensive view of identity (both human and nonhuman) to evaluate that identity's attributes, access, and behavior to determine what access is appropriate for a given context.
Furthermore, it allows an organization to create a coherent security policy, based on identity, that spans all applications, data, and infrastructure. An audit record can document the successes and failures of this policy. Ideally, using identity in this way is an approach that learns from this historical record and takes input from both machine learning as well as from human insight. Rather than being tactical, identity govern ..
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