Converged Identity Access Management: The Future of Unified Identity Security

The digital era has enhanced communication, connectivity, productivity, efficiency, innovation, and convenience while transforming the way we live and work. The digital ecosystem continues to expand rapidly with organisations embracing cloud services, remote and hybrid work cultures, bring-your-own-device environments, and third-party integrations. However, this digital transformation has also created new challenges and risks that come with the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats, cyberbullying, and identity theft, where managing digital identities and securing access has become very complex.

The Identity Security Challenge

Identity-based attacks are today the top vector for breaches, with cybercriminals targeting mismanaged credentials, over-privileged accounts, and identity silos. 70% of security breaches involve compromised credentials or identity misuse (Verizon DBIR 2024).

42% of organisations use multiple, disconnected identity solutions, leading to inconsistent security enforcement (Forrester).  Over 80% of enterprises struggle with identity sprawl, where unmanaged accounts and privileges create major security gaps (Gartner).

Legacy IAM Tools are Proving to be a Burden

IAM is a framework of technologies, policies, and processes that help organizations manage digital identities and control user access to technology resources. Traditionally, identity management covered Identity Access Management (IAM), Identity Governance and Administration (IGA), and Privileged Access Management (PAM). Traditional IAM solutions come in silos, where different tools are leveraged for different purposes.  These tools, however, lack seamless integration, leading to visibility gaps, with no complete control, creating hindrances to agility, compliance, and security.  This fragmented approach blocks real-time visibility, giving rise to blind spots in identity governance, increased attack surface, and compliance challenges.  With cyberthreats becoming more frequent and sophisticated, and regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and NIS2 demanding stronger identity governance and becoming more stringent, this fragmented strategy of the traditional IAM is not feasible any longer.

The Benefits of a Converged Identity Security Platform

A converged IAM platform provides a holistic approach to identity security, addressing the challenges of traditional IAM.  This approach integrates multiple identity access solutions like the IAM, IGA, PAM, Access management (Single Sign-on and Multi-factor Authentication), and Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) into a single intelligent framework or application.  This integration of access controls and policies streamlines the identity management processes, enhances user experience, and improves security.

1. Eliminating Identity Silos for Unified Security

To eliminate the gaps created by siloed, disconnected, and fragmented legacy IAM systems, the converged IAM platform is most suitable, which is established by consolidating IAM, IGA, and PAM into a single system. This platform offers a single pane of glass view of user identities, access privileges, and authentication activity for the benefit of the security teams. By implementing role-based access control (RBAC), privileged access, and automating key security processes, the organisation can enhance its security posture.

Example: If an attacker compromises a SaaS account, traditional IAM solutions might not detect it, but a Converged IAM platform would correlate access attempts across multiple environments and trigger an automated security response.

2. Strengthening Zero Trust with Continuous Identity Verification

A converged IAM is an essential component of the zero-trust architecture that operates on the principle of “never trust, always verify”, a part of the organisation’s cybersecurity strategy.  It ensures that users are continuously authenticated and authorised before gaining access to the network resource.

Converged IAM verifies identity context by leveraging risk-based authentication (RBA) where security requirements are dynamically adjusted based on the behaviour of the user attempting to gain entry. By implementing adaptive access controls, security teams can analyse the location, device, session risk, and behavioural patterns to detect anomalies. The principle of least privilege in the IAM solution ensures users, programs, and systems are granted the minimum necessary access they truly require to perform the task, thereby reducing risk exposure.

Example: If an employee suddenly logs in from an unusual location, Converged IAM can require additional authentication or block access entirely until the identity is verified.

3. Automating Identity Lifecycle Management

Legacy IAM, which manually manages user identities across multiple systems, unfortunately creates orphaned accounts and compliance risks, besides providing excessive permissions, giving rise to security risks. On the other hand, a converged IAM platform automates identity lifecycle management.

This approach ensures all new employees, partners, and third-party business associates get the right to access from their first day of association with the organisation.  In the event of roles getting changed or projects coming to an end, the access provided automatically gets adjusted. Furthermore, all dormant accounts get immediately deactivated to prevent further unauthorised use.

Example: When an employee leaves an organisation, Converged IAM automatically revokes access across all connected systems, preventing security gaps.

4. Stopping Identity-Based Attacks with Proactive Security

Identity-based attacks target user credentials to gain unauthorised access to data or systems by exploiting vulnerabilities in identity security. Cybercriminals leverage phishing, credential stuffing, MFA bypass, and session hijacking, where they impersonate legitimate users and move laterally within the network.

With the traditional security measures and tools, it is a challenge to differentiate between the user’s and hacker’s behaviour in these identity attacks.  On the contrary, converged IAM with integrated ITDR can detect and neutralise threats in real-time. Unusual login attempts and suspicious success patterns are identified with anomaly detection.  Automated response actions can lock compromised accounts, trigger MFA reauthentication, and revoke privileges.  Behaviour analytics helps in identifying legitimate users.

Example: If an admin account suddenly escalates privileges without prior request, Converged IAM can immediately flag the behaviour and suspend access pending further investigation.

In today’s hybrid IT environment, identity is the new perimeter, and organisations can no longer afford siloed IAM systems. In the evolving cybersecurity landscape, only a converged IAM platform can deliver the robust defence against identity threats, frictionless access, and scalable identity risk automation that modern enterprises require.

Written By - Vikas Chaturvedi, Principal Architect – Microsoft Cybersecurity, Inspira Enterprise

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