Understanding Identity and Access Management Concepts

One of the first areas in IT security is giving someone access to the company's network to use resources for their job. There are four key elements to Identify and Access Management (IAM), and these are identity, authentication, authorization, and accounting. Let's look at each of these in the order that they should be presented:

• Identify: Each person needs some form of identification so that they can prove who they are; this could be anything, ranging from a username to a smart card. It needs to be unique so that the person using that identity is accountable for its use.
• Authentication: The second part after proving your identity is to provide authentication for that identity. This can be done in many ways; for example, inserting a password or if you have a smart card, it would be a Personal Identification Number (PIN).
• Authorization: Once the individual has been authenticated, they are given an access...