One of the key components of Microsoft Entra, is its Identity Governance offering that helps organizations manage the identity and access lifecycle of their users, applications, and resources. It enables organizations to balance their need for security, compliance, and productivity, while reducing costs and complexity.
In this blog post, we will explore some of the key features and benefits of Microsoft Entra Identity Governance, and how it can help you achieve your identity governance goals.
Identity Lifecycle
Identity lifecycle refers to the process of creating, updating, and deleting user accounts and their associated attributes. Identity governance helps organizations ensure that users have the right level of access to the right resources at the right time, based on their role, location, and business needs.
Microsoft Entra Identity Governance provides several features to help you manage the identity lifecycle of your users, such as:
Self-service password reset (SSPR)
Allows users to reset their own passwords without contacting the help desk, reducing support costs and improving user satisfaction.
Self-service profile management
Allows users to update their own profile information, such as phone number, address, or manager, without contacting the help desk or waiting for approval.
Dynamic groups
Allows you to create groups based on user attributes or conditions, such as department, location, or job title. These groups are automatically updated when user attributes change, ensuring that users have the correct group memberships at all times.
**Access reviews**
Allows you to periodically review and verify the access rights of your users and groups, and remove any unnecessary or outdated access. This helps you maintain compliance with internal policies and external regulations, and reduce the risk of unauthorized access. You can also delegate the review process to the resource owners or managers who have better visibility into the user's activities.
Access Lifecycle
Access lifecycle refers to the process of granting, modifying, and revoking access to applications and resources. Identity governance helps organizations ensure that users have the minimum level of access required to perform their tasks, and that access is revoked when no longer needed.
Microsoft Entra Identity Governance provides several features to help you manage the access lifecycle of your users, such as:
Entitlement management
Allows you to create packages of access rights for different roles or scenarios, such as new hires, contractors, or project teams. Users can request access to these packages through a self-service portal or an automated workflow, and approvers can review and approve or deny requests. This simplifies the process of granting and revoking access, and provides an audit trail of who has access to what and why.
Privileged identity management (PIM)
Allows you to manage the access rights of your privileged users, such as administrators or developers. You can enforce just-in-time (JIT) accessing granting temporary and time-limited access to privileged resources or roles based on a specific request or approval workflow. This reduces the risk of unauthorized or malicious use of privileged credentials or accounts. You can also allow just-enough-access (JEA) policies for these users, limiting the scope and actions of privileged users by applying granular permissions or restrictions based on their role or task. This reduces the potential impact of human errors or misconfigurations. requiring them to request and activate their privileged roles when needed, and automatically deactivating them after a specified time or condition. This reduces the exposure of your sensitive data and systems to potential threats.
Terms of use
Allows you to define and enforce policies for accessing your applications and resources, such as requiring users to accept a disclaimer or provide a reason for accessing a resource. This helps you comply with legal or contractual obligations, and provide transparency and accountability for your users.
Scenarios of Usage
Microsoft Entra Identity Governance can help you address various identity governance scenarios in your organization, such as:
Onboarding new employees
You can use entitlement management to create packages of access rights for different job roles or departments in your organization. When a new employee joins your organization, you can assign them a package based on their role or department, which will automatically grant them access to the applications and resources they need to start working. You can also use dynamic groups to automatically add them to relevant groups based on their profile attributes.
Managing contractors or partners
You can use entitlement management to create packages of access rights for different types of external collaborators in your organization. When a contractor or partner needs access to your applications or resources, you can assign them a package based on their project or contract terms. You can also use terms of use to require them to accept a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) or provide a business justification for accessing your data.
Remote work
You can enable your employees to work from anywhere by using self-service identity management and passwordless authentication. You can also protect your resources from unauthorized or risky access by using identity protection and conditional access policies.
Mergers and acquisitions
You can quickly integrate the identities and access of new employees or partners from different organizations by using identity synchronization and access packages. You can also ensure that the access rights are aligned with your organization's policies by using access reviews and entitlement management.
Remote work
You can enable your employees to work from anywhere by using self-service identity management and passwordless authentication. You can also protect your resources from unauthorized or risky access by using identity protection and conditional access policies.
Digital transformation
You can accelerate your adoption of cloud-based services and applications by using identity synchronization and access packages. You can also ensure that your privileged users have secure and auditable access to these services by using JIT access and JEA.
Conclusion
You may recognise that many of the features of Microsoft Entra Identity Governance were either available separately or a third party or custom solution would have to be implemented. Microsoft Entra Identity Governance is a comprehensive solution that helps you manage the identities and access in a single place rather then hunting down the appropriate function across the earlier versions. It allows you to balance your organization's need for security, compliance, and productivity by automating and simplifying the identity lifecycle, access lifecycle, and privileged access management processes.
Comments