Identity Security Posture Management, or ISPM, provides organizations with a mechanism to manage and monitor security systems. As identity continues to become the main threat leveraged by bad actors, identity-related breaches become an increasing risk to organizations. Cloud technologies, third-party services such as SaaS offerings, and hybrid work environments increase risk and have become important attack vectors to address.
What is Identity Security Posture Management (ISPM)
Identity Security Posture Management (ISPM) is a security framework that proactively improves an organization’s security posture. The framework helps to ensure that identities, both internal and external to an organization, are secured and protected against misuse. ISPM looks to address breaches of both machine and human identities with technologies and processes aimed at reducing identity-related risks.
ISPM focuses specifically on identity and access management processes and tools to provide a holistic view of an organization’s overall security posture. ISPM provides a layer of visibility and protection not addressed by standard identity and access management systems. ISPM looks to address identity vulnerabilities with identity-related systems and security processes by enforcing best practices that continuously monitor and assesses the identity infrastructure.
Why Leverage ISPM
Traditional methods of protecting identities are no longer effective. The increased complexity of identity infrastructure and growing threat of cyberattacks have negatively impacted the ability of organizations to respond to threats.
This is due to:
- Identity related attacks such a phishing, credential stuffing, and privilege escalation have become one of the main causes for data breaches. Leveraging compromised identities allows access to sensitive systems and proprietary data. Lateral movement leveraging compromised identities is a threat not detected by classic identity and access management infrastructure.
- Complex identity infrastructure and management processes cause increased risk and can be challenging to address. Organizations leverage a combination of on-premises, cloud, and SaaS applications that leads to decreased visibility of activity across the overall IT environment.
- Compliance regulations that require organizations to address and comply to multiple standards for handling personal identifiers, sensitive data, and security processes. Penalties for not complying to these regulations can result in fines and can damage an organization’s reputation.
- User authentications and access management into an organization’s systems has become increasingly complex. Users often access systems with multiple devices and from differing locations causing increased risk that cannot be addressed by traditional security systems and processes.
Breaking Down the Components of Identity Security Posture Management
There are several components of ISPM that are necessary when securing identities:
Assessing Identity Risks
ISPM addresses the risks associated with identities. It includes factors like weak passwords, orphaned accounts, and user permissions across the corporate infrastructure. Risk assessments allow organizations to take the necessary actions to address identity-related risks.
Environment Monitoring
Continuous monitoring of user activity is a core component of ISPM. ISPM looks to detect security-related bad actor activities such as suspicious login attempts, non-standard access activities, and increase in user privileges. Addressing these issues can be through alerting or automation of mitigation activities.
Automated Actions
ISPM provides organizations with the ability to enforce identity-related policies. This includes things like ensuring enforcement of strong passwords, review of multi-factor authentication, and enforcement of zero trust principles. Remediation activities can be automated to lock accounts or require escalated user verification.
IAM System Integration
ISPM tools and processes augment existing identity and access management (IAM) systems. ISPM looks to provide an overall view of the identity infrastructure and security posture to identify and address security vulnerabilities. This overarching layer provides greater visibility into the IAM systems.
Improved Visibility
ISPM helps to provide increased visibility into who is accessing systems and can audit the activities of identity-related activities within those systems. ISPM tools can generate the reports needed to perform remediation activities and allow proactive analysis of identity access for compliance reporting.
Analysis of User Behavior
ISPM solutions can be leveraged to detect account behaviors which could indicate a compromised account. This also can be used to detect internal users’ activity which may not be normal for the infrastructure. ISPM can address the activity through automated actions or notifications.
Implementing ISPM
There are several factors to consider when implementing Identity Security Posture Management. Before implementing ISPM review and catalog your existing IAM systems. Any risks should be identified and document areas for improvement.
Look to choose an ISPM solution that integrates with your existing IAM infrastructure and accommodates your security objectives. As part of the implementation process review and, where needed, define identity best practices. This can include things like password policies, use of multi-factor or passwordless authentication, or zero trust principles.
Post implementation, leverage continuous monitoring processes and implement automated remediation of identified threats. Look to address identified vulnerabilities and review risky behavior. This may require training of users to ensure that the principles of identity security and well understood and best practices are followed.
Conclusion
Identity Security Posture Management is a critical component of your overall security processes and infrastructure. With increasing security threats, ISPM gives an organization visibility of those threats and the ability to automatically address them. As identity continues to become an increasing area of cyber threats, having an ISPM solution and processes are a necessary step towards ensuring a secure digital environment.
