Identity and Access Management

In computing, identity management (IdM) describes the management of individual principals, their authentication, authorization, and privileges within or across system and enterprise boundaries with the goal of increasing security and productivity while decreasing cost, downtime and repetitive tasks. The terms “Identity Management” and “Identity and Access Management” (or IAM) are used interchangeably in the area of Identity access management, while identity management itself falls under the umbrella of IT Security. Identity-management systems, products, applications and platforms manage identifying and ancillary data about entities that include individuals, computer-related hardware and applications. Technologies, services and terms related to identity management include Directory services, Digital Cards, Service Providers, Identity Providers, Web Services, Access control, Digital Identities, Password Managers, Single Sign-on, Security Tokens, Security Token Services (STS), Workflows, OpenID, WS-Security, WS-Trust, SAML 2.0, OAuth and RBAC. IdM covers issues such as how users gain an identity, the protection of that identity and the technologies supporting that protection (e.g., network protocols, digital certificates, passwords, etc.).