Identity governance key to zero trust

Remote work and increased cloud adoption have dramatically changed the traditional network perimeter, requiring a new approach to identity management. A new research report from Enterprise Strategy Group, sponsored by Omada A/S, finds that modern identity governance is key to protecting critical corporate assets from compromise while also supporting business agility with respect to end-user workflows.

The full report, “A Modern Approach to Identity Governance and Administration: Securing Remote Work and Supporting Zero Trust Initiatives,” is available for download at  https://bit.ly/3fXaWNk.

The results of the report reveal that as zero trust rapidly gains traction as a core tenet of securing the modern workplace, more organizations are benefiting from the alignment of its principles with the core IGA capabilities of scoping user roles, implementing segregation of duties, regularly reviewing permissions and approval workflows, and continuous monitoring and authentication. Incorporating modern IGA with zero trust helps organizations tackle the increased challenge of balancing strict security measurements, supporting business agility and implementing least privilege access that cloud adoption has brought with it.

The ESG report surveyed 150 cybersecurity and IT professionals to gain deeper insight into the role of cloud-based identity and governance administration in organizations today. The research finds:

• 72% of respondents reported that managing identities has become even more difficult with a remote workforce; the top contributing factor was the need to support access to a range of applications 
• 86% rated IGA as one of the top five cybersecurity controls employed to protect corporate assets from compromise
• 81% of survey respondents said their IGA program was a key element of their organization’s zero trust security strategy

Doug Cahill, vice president and group director, cybersecurity, Enterprise Strategy Group, said: “The need to secure access to a range of on-premises and cloud-based applications and data has necessitated modernizing identity and access management initiatives. Adoption of IGA has accelerated, with remote work a catalyst and zero trust a guiding strategy.”

Michael Garrett, CEO, Omada, said: “The outcome of our report highlights that identity and access management spending is increasing to support an expansion of IGA use cases as identity governance has become a core element of a cybersecurity strategy to address remote working, zero trust and hybrid cloud challenges.”