IAM can be used in many ways, claims expert

Posted by Steven Gaskill

IT outsourcing users have a range of options to leverage identity and access management (IAM) technologies, it has been claimed.

Perry Carpenter, research director at IT industry analyst Gartner, said that firms have IAM goals which need to be achieved, even if budgets are being affected by the downturn.

He commented: "IAM project funding is increasingly hard to come by and organisations are looking for quick wins to demonstrate IAM’s value."

The group suggested that a firm's web proxy can also act as a security awareness tool, by redirecting users to an internal page which explains why a certain website is blocked, rather than just denying their access.

In addition, it recommended that IAM teams use enterprise single sign-on applications as a way to identify what websites are being visited by employees.

This information can then be used to guide IT managers on whether they should conduct security awareness activities, revisit policies or update proxy rules.

Research published by Imperva found that almost half of passwords are weak, using names, slang or easy to hack words, which could show the need for IT security services.