Identity Governance: The Missing Link in Your Zero-Trust Strategy

In today's evolving threat landscape, the Zero Trust framework has rightly taken centre stage as a crucial security model. The core principle of “never trust, always verify" resonates deeply with organisations grappling with the complexities of cloud adoption, remote workforces, and an ever-increasing number of digital identities. At Obscure Technologies, we see many of our clients embracing this vital shift in security thinking. However, a fundamental element is often overlooked, a missing link that can significantly bolster the effectiveness of your Zero Trust implementation: Identity Governance and Administration (IGA).

While Zero Trust focuses on verifying every user and device attempting to access resources, it’s crucial to ask, "Are those access rights appropriate in the first place? and Who should have access to what, and for how long?" This is where Identity Governance will provide the necessary foundation for a robust Zero Trust strategy.

The digital workplace is exploding with identities – not just employees, but also devices and resources spread globally. Cloud and SaaS adoption, along with remote and contract workers, have drastically increased the complexity of managing these identities. It's a challenge for IT and security teams to balance productivity with the critical need to limit access to the right people, the right resources, and for the right amount of time. Without proper management, security gaps across the identity lifecycle can leave organisations vulnerable to breaches.

Consider the core tenets of Zero Trust: least privilege, no implicit trust, and continuous monitoring. How can you truly enforce least privilege without understanding and governing the fine-grained entitlements users possess within applications? How can you maintain "no implicit trust" if access rights remain static and unreviewed? And how can you effectively monitor access without clear visibility into who should have access?

Identity Governance and Administration provides the crucial answers to these questions. It encompasses:

Identity Governance: Defining the processes and policies around role management, access reviews or certifications, separation of duties, logging, analytics, and reporting. This ensures clarity on who should have access to what and helps identify potential compliance conflicts.

Identity Administration: The practical administration of accounts and credentials, provisioning and deprovisioning users and devices, and managing entitlements. This ensures that access is granted and revoked efficiently and in line with policies.

By implementing IGA, you're not just focusing on verifying access attempts; you're ensuring that the access being requested is appropriate and necessary in the first place. This proactive approach strengthens your Zero Trust posture in several keyways:

Enforcing Least Privilege: IGA, especially with features like Entitlement Management, allows organisations to discover, manage, and assign fine-grained entitlements in a single view. Attribute-based policies can then enforce least privilege, granting users only the minimum levels of permissions needed for their jobs. As one report suggests, a staggering 95% of accounts in IaaS use less than 3% of the entitlements they are granted. IGA helps to remediate this over-provisioning.

Strengthening Continuous Verification: Zero Trust mandates continuous monitoring. IGA complements this with Access Reviews and Certifications, allowing for regular reviews of user access to resources to reduce the risk of inappropriate access and accumulated privilege. These campaigns can even be triggered automatically based on events like a user changing roles.

Improving Risk Management:  IGA provides the visibility needed to inform risk-based cybersecurity programs. Through reporting and analytics, organisations can track and present identity governance data to reduce access risks. This allows for a more informed and proactive approach to security within a Zero Trust framework.

Addressing Complex Environments: Organisations often have fragmented identity stores across different cloud, on-prem, and hybrid environments. IGA solutions are designed to integrate with these diverse systems, establishing a single source of truth for identities and access rights. This is crucial for applying consistent Zero Trust principles across your entire technology ecosystem.

Okta Identity Governance is specifically designed to be that crucial missing link in your Zero Trust strategy. Its converged IAM, IGA, and PAM platform provides an unparalleled view of user identity. With over 7,000 pre-built integrations, including more than 600 directly related to Identity Governance, Okta can be deployed quickly to automate complex identity processes at scale. Features like Access Requests, Access Certification, and Entitlement Management directly support Zero Trust principles by ensuring secure, compliant, and appropriately provisioned access.

Implementing a successful Zero Trust strategy requires a holistic approach. While verifying every access attempt is essential, understanding and governing the underlying access rights through Identity Governance is the bedrock upon which a truly resilient security posture is built. Don't let Identity Governance be the missing link in your Zero Trust framework. By integrating IGA, you can move beyond simply verifying to ensuring that the access granted aligns with the principles of least privilege and continuous verification, ultimately strengthening your organisation's security and reducing its vulnerability to modern threats.

At Obscure Technologies, we work closely with Okta to help organisations like yours implement comprehensive identity solutions that underpin a robust Zero Trust strategy.

Contact us today to learn how we can help you bridge this critical gap and elevate your security posture.