Cloud identity

Cloud identity is a software-as-a-service solution that combines identity, access, application, and endpoint management. Administrators use this identity-as-a-service offering to manage users, applications, and devices from a central location. A unified solution, cloud identity, can benefit IT and security teams by streamlining the process of federating identities between identity providers.

Why cloud identities should be governed

To protect cloud environments, cloud entities should be governed by rules that tightly manage access privileges and permissions. Cloud infrastructures include thousands of human and machine entities that create a growing attack surface. Cloud identity governance solutions automate the management of identity, permissions, and access risks at scale to effectively and efficiently secure cloud infrastructures.

Typical features of cloud identity solutions

Key features of cloud identity solutions include:

• Ability to set up digital workspaces quickly
• Account takeover protection
• Automated user provisioning and deprovisioning
• Context-aware access
• Endpoint management
• Hybrid identity management with Active Directory and secure LDAP (lightweight directory access protocol)
• Integration with hundreds of cloud applications out of the box
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
• Single sign-on (SSO)
• A unified management console

Challenges in implementing cloud identity and mitigation strategies

Organizations face a number of challenges in implementing cloud identity solutions due to their broad scope and complexity. However, these are routinely overcome. The following are several common challenges associated with cloud identity implementations.

Ensuring compliance

Nearly all organizations are required to comply with various regulations and standards (e.g., General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)). Cloud environments present a challenge due to the number of identities that must be monitored and managed across a vast ecosystem. Each identity with access to sensitive information carries the risk of non-compliance.

The holistic identity management across cloud environments provided with cloud identity solutions helps ensure that organizations meet compliance requirements and adhere to standards. This includes monitoring compliance with relevant regulations and standards, enforcing security and privacy protocols, maintaining records of all access and data residency, and providing ready access to reports to support compliance audits.

Integrating with legacy systems

As cloud systems are being added to IT environments, organizations must figure out how they will work with existing systems. Integrating traditional on-premises systems and cloud-native systems is challenging due to the different architectures and underlying data structures.

Depending on the systems, hybrid deployments can overcome this issue. Additionally, application programming interfaces (APIs) and middleware can be used to facilitate the integration of disparate systems. Regardless of the approach, a phased integration or migration strategy is recommended.

Managing cloud identity implementations across multiple cloud environments

Most organizations employ multiple cloud services. Creating and monitoring these identities for human (i.e., internal and external) and non-human users is tedious, requiring each identity and the related access privileges to be cataloged and then updated to increase or decrease rights as requirements change and to revoke privileges when users leave.

Cloud identity solutions can help address the challenges that come with sprawling cloud ecosystems and identities. These purpose-built identity management solutions provide a unified view of identity information, access control, and policy enforcement. Cloud identity solutions can also provide just-in-time access to limited access by external users or add protection to sensitive information.

Providing protection against evolving threats

Cyber threats are continuously evolving to evade security systems. Increasingly, these threats are targeting cloud identities. Organizations struggle with these threats due to the numerous vectors being used for attacks, from credential harvesting to phishing.

Cloud identity solutions can monitor access and usage to identify unusual behavior that could be an indicator of a threat due to a compromised identity. If an identity-related threat is detected, cloud identity solutions can automate responses to mitigate potential damage and alert teams to expedite their response.

Addressing BYOD identity risks

Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) brings a unique set of cloud identity challenges. While many organizations incorporate BYOD into their security strategies, shadow IT remains. Both managed BOYD and shadow BYOD present risks, including weak or shared credentials and device loss or theft, leaving sensitive data exposed.

Cloud identity solutions offer a number of features that help address these and other BYOD identity risks. Access controls provided by cloud identity can be employed to secure BYOD. These access controls include multi-factor authentication (MFA) and conditional access policies that restrict access based on device compliance, location, or behavior.

Additionally, cloud identity solutions offer integrations with mobile device management (MDM) systems to ensure that only secured devices access corporate resources. Other cloud identity solution capabilities that help protect BYOD are single sign-on (SSO), a zero trust security approach, regular access audits, and security awareness training.

Cloud identity benefits

The benefits of cloud identity include the following:

• Allows users to easily access applications using single sign-on
• Assesses domains’ overall exposure to a data breach
• Automates mobile device management
• Enables intuitive user experiences on endpoint devices
• Extends on-premises directory to the cloud
• Identifies users that pose security risks
• Leverages threat intelligence signals to optimize security defenses
• Protects user and organizational data with multi-factor authentication
• Provides an easily accessible view of administrator activity logs and overviews of key metrics and trends
• Secures devices by enforcing screen locks or passcodes
• Supports policy enforcement for all devices (i.e., personal, corporate) with endpoint management tools
• Unifies management of users, access privileges, applications, and endpoint management

Cloud identity and single sign-on

Cloud identity, acting as a third-party identity provider (IdP), supports the OpenID Connect (OIDC) and Security Assertion Markup Language 2.0 (SAML) protocols. While SAML requires more effort to implement than OIDC, it is more well-established in enterprises. Conversely, OIDC is easier to establish but is not widely adopted in enterprises.

Cloud identity provides administrators with the option to use the protocol that works best for their deployments.

Cloud identity and multi-factor authentication

Cloud identity allows organizations to implement MFA in several ways and at varying levels.

Levels include:

• Optional
  Users opt-in to the use of MFA rather than it being required
• Mandatory
  Users select which MFA method to use
• Security keys mandatory
  Users are required to use a security key as an authentication factor

Cloud identity MFA options include:

• Backup codes provided to users in advance of needing them for cases where users will not have connectivity to receive codes
• One-time codes delivered via text message or phone call; prompts are sent to a mobile device to verify that the login attempt is legitimate
• Security keys (e.g., physical key inserted into a USB (universal serial bus) port on users’ computers)

Cloud identity and the principle of least privilege

Cloud identity supports the enforcement of the principle of least privilege. That is, cloud identity helps ensure that a person or system only has access to resources limited to the minimal amount required to do their jobs.

Cloud identity helps enforce the principle of least privilege in a number of ways, including the following:

• The ability to evaluate the risks of identities, human and non-human, across multiple public clouds
• Continuous monitoring of identities and access for activities that conflict with governance rules and normal operational behavior
• End-to-end visibility

Cloud identity and just-in-time access

Just-in-time access is an approach to applying the principle of least privilege. For users who need privileged access, just-in-time access limits rights to only when they are required.

Just-in-time privileged access rights range from permanent (i.e., applicable until revoked) to eligible (i.e., approved for access on an as-needed basis). Cloud identity uses just-in-time access to:

• Conduct audits and assessments of past activities
• Create a record of why privileges were activated
• Minimize the chance of a user compromising resources (i.e., modifying or deleting resources)

Cloud identity and regulatory compliance

Cloud identity helps organizations meet the compliance requirements of key regulations, including the following:

• California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
  Functions included with cloud identity that support CCPA compliance are:
• Access governance to control where the data is housed and who can access it
• Centralized administration of access management and identity governance
• Identity management capabilities that tie individual consumers to their data and privacy requests
• Strong authentication
  
• Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
  Cloud identity helps meet FERPA compliance requirements with:
• The ability to delegate education data access to third parties
• Accurate, complete, and time-stamped logging of users
• Automated reporting with access management evidence to meet audit standards
• A federated infrastructure that allows secure access based on the principle of least privilege
  
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
  GDPR requirements supported by cloud identity include:
• Access governance
• Access management
• Authentication
• Authorization
• Identity governance
• Identity management
  
• Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)
  GLBA compliance requirements that cloud identity can address are:
• Automated provisioning and deprovisioning of users as roles and employment status change
• Enforcement of the principle of least privilege
• Multi-factor authentication
• Role-based management that grants access according to users’ roles rather than direct assignment
• Separation of duties controls
  
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
  Among the HIPAA compliance requirements that may be addressed with cloud identity are:
• Automatic access logging and automated reporting to facilitate auditing
• Centralized access governance across organizations’ infrastructure, including human and non-human users (e.g., IoT (Internet of Things) devices)
• Credential protection with single sign-on
  
• New York SHIELD Act (Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security Act)
  Cloud identity capabilities that support compliance with the NY SHIELD Act include:
• Automated provisioning and deprovisioning of users as personnel change roles
• Entitlement management to limit permissions to the least privileges
• Federated identity management to simplify integration and tracking of business partners
• Multi-factor authentication to increase the difficulty of stealing credentials to access data illicitly
  
• Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)
  SOX compliance requirements addressed with cloud identity are:
• Automatic logging and tracking tools that generate clear reports for compliance audits
• Centralized administration of access management and identity governance
• Enforcement of separation of duties rules
• Verification of user rights and permissions across the infrastructure

Real-world cloud identity use cases

The following are several examples of real-world cloud identity use cases. These use cases showcase the capabilities of cloud identity solutions and the many benefits that organizations have achieved by using them.

Detect identities that pose a risk

By combining real-time monitoring, automated threat responses, and risk-based policies, cloud identity solutions proactively identify and mitigate security risks posed by compromised, negligent, or malicious users. Key features provided by cloud identity solutions that help organizations detect and manage users who pose potential security risks include:

• Behavioral anomaly detection
• Compromised credential detection
• Continuous monitoring and automated response
• Privileged user monitoring
• Risk-based conditional access

Enable intuitive user experiences

Organizations use cloud identity solutions to simplify authentication and access management, which enhances user satisfaction and helps ensure that employees can work efficiently and securely from any endpoint device. To do this, organizations leverage several core cloud identity capabilities, including:

• Adaptive and conditional access controls
• Automated user provisioning and deprovisioning
• Biometric and passwordless authentication
• Endpoint identity policy management
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
• Self-service password management
• Single sign-on (SSO)
• Social login integration
• Unified access across cloud and on-premises systems

Identify identity-related security risks

Cloud identity solutions are employed by organizations to provide visibility and control over user identities, access, and authentication across applications and services. This visibility enables organizations to continuously monitor identity-related risks to detect vulnerabilities that could lead to breaches. Among the cloud identity features used to detect identity-related security risks are:

• Access audits and reporting
• Centralized identity management
• Compliance monitoring
• MFA enforcement
• Risk-based authentication

Mobile device management

Organizations are increasingly using cloud identity solutions as a key part of mobile device management (MDM). These solutions streamline and automate MDM, helping to ensure that all devices accessing an organization’s resources (e.g., smartphones, tablets, and laptops) are secure, compliant, and properly managed. Several ways that cloud identity supports MDM management include:

• Automated blocking of suspicious devices
• Conditional access controls
• Control settings for managed apps
• Device enrollment
• Enforcement of custom password requirements
• Policy enforcement
• Self-service portals

Optimize security defenses with threat intelligence

Organizations integrate cloud identity with threat intelligence to strengthen security defenses. Threat intelligence provides real-time information about emerging threats, vulnerabilities, and malicious activities, allowing cloud identity platforms to better detect risks and respond effectively and proactively. This integration allows cloud identity solutions to better:

• Detect compromised credentials
• Facilitate risk-based conditional access
• Provide real-time alerts and automate some responses
• Support internet protocol (IP) blacklisting and geo-blocking

Unify user access management across cloud environments

Cloud identity solutions help organizations unify the management of users, access privileges, applications, and endpoint devices from a centralized platform. Among the many cloud identity capabilities that organizations leverage to unify access management are:

• Attribute-based access control (ABAC)
• Centralized dashboard
• Conditional access policies
• Role-based access control (RBAC)
• Single sign-on (SSO)

Modernize and strengthen security with cloud identity

Cloud identity solutions typically provide features and functionality that are purpose-built for modern infrastructures. Identities can be managed and protected from exploitation in complex cloud environments.

Organizations that leverage cloud identity can reap numerous benefits, including adherence to many compliance requirements and support for enforcing the principle of least privilege, which is generally regarded as critical for mitigating risk and defending against threats.