Report: Security teams plagued by poorly managed identity data

Security teams handling Identity and access management (IAM) are hampered by dirty data and need management help from a chief data officer, according to a new report by TechVision Research.

IAM is typically defined as a “security discipline that enables the right individuals to access the right resources at the right times for the right reasons.” But identity data is riddled with errors, which ultimately raise security and privacy risks, the report says.

The problems include multiple versions of employee names and titles in various systems — and even “ghost” employees. “We find a plethora of identity data challenges, including multiple authoritative sources of data, inconsistent data, redundant data, old data and misclassification of data,” the report says.

For example, companies may think they’ve deleted data about a former employee only to find that it was replicated in other systems. “Scores of companies are left with the ghost legacy of former employees that still have access rights — even people they fired for cause,” says Gary Rowe, CEO and principal consulting analyst at TechVision Research.

“Most identity teams have little understanding of data architecture, data management and data governance and it is time that identity management embraces these disciplines,” the report says. Fortunately, the rise of the chief data officer role will provide more C-suite attention to issues of data quality and governance.

The report also discusses:

• The “siloization of data” and the need to synchronize across silos
• The value of “virtual directory services”
• How identity data’s authenticity decays over time
• Constructing an Identity Data Service

Download this free report from TechVision Research: “Getting Your Identity Data Right”