Best Access Management Software

Access management, or IAM, comprises the systems and procedures that allow IT administrators to designate a digital identity for each individual, authenticate them when they log in, authorize them to access specific resources, and monitor and manage those identities throughout their lifecycle.

It is important to avoid granting users excess access privileges. Typically, this involves offering all users the lowest level of access possible while still allowing them to perform their roles.

There are several areas that fall under the category of access management:

• Authentication requires users to provide credentials to the access management system before being granted access to their required resources.
  
  
• Single sign-on is a one-time process that users execute to access all of their resources. With single sign-on, users can access different applications but only have to authenticate once. There is no need to remember multiple usernames and passwords for various applications.
  
  
• Federated single sign-on allows users from outside of a domain, such as users from other divisions or organizations, to access externally hosted applications without the need to remember and provide account credentials.
  
  
• Privileged access management provides access management services for users with elevated privileges, such as system administrators. These users generally perform tasks that can expose sensitive information.

Access management is the most effective security practice that protects organizations and data against threats; organizations that use identity and access management solutions report a reduction of unauthorized access incidents. Implementing appropriate access management reinforces an organization’s risk management and security posture.

Access management security ensures that users have the right access privileges required for their job. Without it, approvals for access requests, frequent changes in user roles and departments, and the lack of suitable processes for access put the organization at risk of insider threats and increase the chances of data leakage.

By leveraging access management programs to automate and streamline access management, organizations can boost operational efficiencies.

Access management systems are used to manage and monitor user access authorization and access to data, systems, and applications to help protect organizations from data loss and security breaches.

Security access management systems are designed to automate and simplify the process of assigning and managing numerous access settings. Automated software helps guarantee that users have the correct authorization levels and only have access to the resources they need.

Regulatory compliance and industry mandates have become increasingly stringent and more complex in recent years. Access management solutions that automate data collection, reporting, and access enable companies to limit access to only those individuals who need it and be more compliant to industry standards. By leveraging strategic security policies, organizations can ensure data is strictly controlled while meeting ongoing compliance requirements.

Key benefits of using access management systems include:

• Accidental damage prevention: Users with excess privileges could accidentally delete or share private enterprise data.
  
  
• Malicious attack prevention: An employee with bad intent could damage or steal data or expose data to undermine the organization.
  
  
• Prevent hacking attempts: Hackers often attempt to gain access to user profiles to hack into privileged accounts and access sensitive data on the server.
  
  
• Save time with automation: Using manual tools for user management can slow IT operations and cause errors, potentially putting organizations at risk. By automating access management tasks like creating, modifying, deleting, or disabling accounts, access management systems help meet business demands in a faster, more accurate way. Using role-specific templates makes user provisioning fast. Automatic audit reports also lessen the time it takes to gain understanding of security concerns.
  
  
• Security: Automated tools allow admins to instantly view breaches and act swiftly to address risks to protect data and resume operations.

Features to look for in an access management system include:

• Access configuration: Access authorization levels can be configured for every individual. This is done by ranking organization departments based on the level of authority required to gain access. Authorization can be granted for specific dates and times.
  
  
• Identity management: Management of identity relationships across all on premises and in the cloud, for customers and employees.
  
  
• Profile and privacy central management: Comply with privacy regulations while providing your customers and employees with a single dashboard that allows them to manage their profile and privacy settings.
  
  
• Directory services: Enable the handling of large transaction volumes with high performance.
  
  
• Reporting: Automated tools generate customized reports showing who has access to what, when they accessed it, failed login attempts, and other suspicious actions.
  
  
• Automatic door management: The ability to schedule door commands at specific times or in specific events is popular with organizations that are often open to members of the public during the day and closed at night.
  
  
• Unique alarm notifications: Different notification sounds can be configured in the access management system dashboard. By using this setting, security teams can be notified of events even when they are away from their department.
  
  
• Scheduled backups: Scheduled backups of the access database prevent the risk of having to restore and reset all information and settings after a server crash.
  
  
• Third-party integrations: With multiple departments interacting with access management constantly, many solutions have been developed to integrate with third-party applications to increase office efficiency and productivity and also to improve security.