Break out the containerized Active Directory environment and switch to a modern centralized Identity and access management (IAM).
IAM is essential for managing identities in bare metal, virtual, hybrid cloud and edge computing environments from a central location, helping to minimize security and compliance risks.
It controls access to on-premise and cloud assets, applications and data, based on user or application identity and administratively defined policies to protect against unauthorized system access.
This includes to verify the identity of users, services, and applications and to grant the authenticated users access to specific resources or functions.
Identity providers, secret vaults, and hardware security modules (HSMs) integrate perfectly with our PKI solutions. Administrators manage and safeguard security credentials, keys, certificates and secrets, while data is at rest and in transit.
The process of authentication not only captures login information, but it also allows IT administrators to monitor and manage activity across the infrastructure and services.
Security policy
Use several approaches to implementing a security policy that help to increase the security of the infrastructure while maintaining usability for users. Most commons are single sign-on (SSO) and multifactor authentication (MFA).
Different services, devices and servers: All require separate authentication to be accessed. SSO configures a central identity service that configured services can check for verified users. Users only have to authenticate once and can access multiple services.
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MFA adds an extra layer of security that requires multiple checks to verify an identity prior to granting access.
For this method, consider using hardware tokens and smart cards and configure network authentication types such as RADIUS.
Access controls take identity management a step further by assigning a user identity with a set of predetermined access rights. These controls are often assigned during account setup or user provisioning and operate under the practice of least privilege, a foundation of the Zero Trust model.
Least privilege only gives a user access to the resources it needs for a specific purpose. Systems of access management that follow the least privilege include privileged access management (PAM) which is the most crucial type of access control.
The right tools
These tools significantly simplify identity management and help to meet modern compliance requirements like PCI DSS, USGCB, STIG.
If the strategy is to move to cloud and make the infrastructure container capable, it is mandatory to create a foundation for a highly dynamic and scalable operational environment and reduce the risk of unauthorized access or escalation of access privileges.
Conclusion
Modern identity access management solutions integrate with Active Directory and LDAP and can centrally manage certificate-based authentication and authorization.
Furthermore, there are excellent open source solutions to manage identities like users, machines, services and to automate access controls.
Please get in touch with us for more detailed information.
