Seven Advantages of Cloud Identity

80% of companies experience security incidents in the Cloud

Adopting modern identity and access management (IAM) solutions is a crucial step in your security roadmap. Here are seven compelling reasons for organizations to make the switch to Cloud-based identity systems to unlock a range of identity security enhancements and expanding use cases.

Seven reasons to make the switch:

1. Unified Management:

Traditional on-premises IAM solutions are fragmented silos. Cloud identity systems consolidate user authentication and access control across various environments, including Cloud applications, web-based services, and collaboration with third parties. Unified management ensures better administrative consistency, policy management and enforcement, and agility to onboard new users and applications rapidly.

2. Access Governance and Audit Trails:

Cloud identity solutions provide clearer visibility into user entitlements, group memberships, and privilege levels that may be higher than intended for the role. Consolidation of audit activity not only aids in forensics and incident response but also with access governance reviews to remove permissions in cases where users accumulate too many unnecessary and unused rights.

3. High Availability and Resiliency:

Cloud identity and authentication services enable organizations to choose providers that provide high availability and resiliency, regardless of where employees work. Public Cloud approaches such as cell-based architecture for mission-critical authentication and authorization services can achieve near-zero downtime.

4. Single Sign-On (SSO):

Cloud identity systems enable seamless single sign-on (SSO) for users across applications. Users log in once and gain access to multiple applications and systems without repeated authentication. This simplicity enhances user experience, reduces password fatigue, and increases application adoption and usage.

5. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA):

Cloud-based multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds zero trust security by requiring users to verify their identity through multiple factors, e.g., biometrics, one-time passcode, push notification, and emerging phishing-resistant passkeys. Cloud IAM solutions make it easier to implement MFA across diverse use cases such as VPN access, RD Web, and privilege elevation / administrator scenarios.

6. Endpoint and Mobile Device Management:

Cloud identity platforms extend protections to endpoints and mobile devices. Companies can manage access and security policies for a wide range of devices. This flexibility supports modern work environments where employees use various devices to access corporate resources.

7. Continuous Monitoring and Threat Detection:

Cloud identity providers have begun to invest heavily in continuous monitoring of credential access threats atop identity infrastructure. Organizations on the extended detection and response (XDR) journey, can now add Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) to their defenses with EPDR and NDR integrations.

With Cloud identity systems, there are virtually no limitations. They deliver superior administration, efficiency, security, and end user productivity, and drastically reduce the cost and complexity of managing and maintaining on-premises identity systems .