There’s no doubt that today’s identity and access management (IAM) programs are under pressure. Invisible forces both inside and outside the enterprise, such as the growing API economy, the explosion of smart devices, the move toward multicloud infrastructure and increasing regulatory compliance, are putting enormous weight on IAM, prompting business and security leaders to re-evaluate existing programs.

Meanwhile, the target audience of identity and access management — the users themselves — are changing too. As breach after breach hits the news, it looks like the average adult is becoming more security-savvy when it comes to managing his or her personal digital identities online.

Modernizing Identity and Access Management With Silent Security

In IBM’s new “Future of Identity Study,” the majority of respondents revealed that they’re now willing to use emergent authentication methods, such as biometric and multifactor authentication, to sign in to their workplace and e-commerce applications. In fact, 67 percent of survey respondents said they are comfortable using biometric authentication today, and a similar percentage said they’d consider using multifactor authentication on their online accounts.

So how can organizations modernize IAM while delighting an increasingly security-aware user base? At IBM, we call that silent security — IAM that works so seamlessly and is so in sync with the day-to-day operations of the business that users don’t even realize it’s there. While other approaches to IAM force security in front of the user — by conducting massive access recertification campaigns or integrating multifactor authentication in front of every other app, for example — silent security works quietly in the background, connecting people to the services they need and only intervening when it detects something wrong.

Read the white paper: Need strong security? Go silent

It’s a vision that’s true to our roots. With decades of experience working with some of the world’s largest corporations, we’re willing to bet you’ve interacted with our IAM products over the years to securely access everyday services and applications, whether you knew it or not. For this year’s Think 2018 conference, which is coming up in March, our team is building a vast array of hands-on user experiences to help organizations accomplish silent security and extend IAM’s impact beyond IT and into the security operation center (SOC) and digital transformation initiatives that are going on in your business.

Learn More About Silent IAM at Think 2018

For the global IAM team here at IBM, Think provides a fun and valuable opportunity for us to get together in person with our colleagues and show off new joint integrations and initiatives.

At our IAM user group and client sessions, you’ll hear about what has worked best from companies such as:

  • YUM! Brands, which used IBM IAM to deliver a global onboarding and offboarding program to millions of employees across 25,000 Pizza Huts; and
  • KPMG, which created a first-class identity governance system to ensure audit compliance across global firms.

Watch the full session from Think 2018: The Best Identity and Access Management is the Kind You Don’t Know is There

More from Identity & Access

“Authorized” to break in: Adversaries use valid credentials to compromise cloud environments

4 min read - Overprivileged plaintext credentials left on display in 33% of X-Force adversary simulations Adversaries are constantly seeking to improve their productivity margins, but new data from IBM X-Force suggests they aren’t exclusively leaning on sophistication to do so. Simple yet reliable tactics that offer ease of use and often direct access to privileged environments are still heavily relied upon. Today X-Force released the 2023 Cloud Threat Landscape Report, detailing common trends and top threats observed against cloud environments over the past…

Artificial intelligence threats in identity management

4 min read - The 2023 Identity Security Threat Landscape Report from CyberArk identified some valuable insights. 2,300 security professionals surveyed responded with some sobering figures: 68% are concerned about insider threats from employee layoffs and churn 99% expect some type of identity compromise driven by financial cutbacks, geopolitical factors, cloud applications and hybrid work environments 74% are concerned about confidential data loss through employees, ex-employees and third-party vendors. Additionally, many feel digital identity proliferation is on the rise and the attack surface is…

X-Force certified containment: Responding to AD CS attacks

6 min read - This post was made possible through the contributions of Joseph Spero and Thanassis Diogos. In June 2023, IBM Security X-Force responded to an incident where a client had received alerts from their security tooling regarding potential malicious activity originating from a system within their network targeting a domain controller. X-Force analysis revealed that an attacker gained access to the client network through a VPN connection using a third-party IT management account. The IT management account had multi-factor authentication (MFA) disabled…

CISA, NSA issue new IAM best practice guidelines

4 min read - The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) recently released a new 31-page document outlining best practices for identity and access management (IAM) administrators. As the industry increasingly moves towards cloud and hybrid computing environments, managing the complexities of digital identities can be challenging. Nonetheless, the importance of IAM cannot be overstated in today's world, where data security is more critical than ever. Meanwhile, IAM itself can be a source of vulnerability if not implemented…