With boosting cloud infrastructure among businesses, the need for software like CIEM has significantly increased. CIEM is basically a SaaS solution that helps enterprises manage user entitlements and handle their data governance.
With its immense popularity, the global CIEM market size is currently valued at USD 1.2 billion. It is expected to grow to more than USD 7 billion by the year 2028. CIEM is also necessary to build an exceptional cloud security infrastructure.
So, what’s the secret behind its success? Hang on till the end to find your answers with all of its advantages, challenges, trends, and whatnot. Also, learn about Images and Videos for Business Marketing by reading this article.
Importance of CIEM for Small Businesses
Taking important considerations of guidelines like GDPR or HIPAA, CIEM provides various advantages to small businesses. The following is the list of those advantages:
Access and Entitlement: In cybersecurity, entitlements & access deal with the rights, permissions, or privileges for certain information. CIEM significantly puts emphasis on this aspect since any problem here, may cause a major loss to the business.
Fine-Grained Access Policy: Also known as Granular Access Control, it limits the organization’s ability to have access to the file. Since CIEM values great on providing privileges, it focuses on POLP (Principal of The Least Privilege). Only the people who matter the most, for a file, can get access to it.
Automated Entitlement Management: Just like how these programs provide access and entitlement, it may also limit it. Thanks to modern technological infrastructure, this process can be easily automated within a few clicks. That is why, manual force can now be focused more on core activities, whereas, entitlement management can be automated for better efficiency.
Risk and Compliance Reporting: Providing or limiting access is all good. But what if someone irrelevant already had access to a file before CIEM was introduced? Well, worry no more. CIEM also reports or identifies the potential risk if there is any. Just as simply antivirus points out the potential threats in a file, CIEM can do the same in its own way.
Detections and Alerts: Being a responsible program, CEIM seeks help from numerous AI and ML tools to detect potential threats, and alert them as soon as possible. It takes almost zero risk with security and privacy concerns.
Strategies for Implementing CIEM
For efficient operations, CIEM must not be applied blindly. Before integrating this system, here are some tips that you must follow:
Research on Different Types of CIEM Software Based on different requirements and characteristics, CIEM software are generally divided into three types. Here are those types of CIEM software:
Role entitlement management
Application entitlements and subscriptions
Identity lifecycle and provisioning management
Test and Troubleshoot When you have finally integrated CIEM into your systems, the work is not done here. In order to make it function properly, regular testing and troubleshooting is important. Here is how you can do that:
Practice load testing or stress testing regularly to keep track of its performance
If there is any issue that arises over the time, report it as soon as possible
Maintain a backup of all the data from your side as well
Seek Help From Experts (If Needed) If you are not an expert in this field, having a professional to reach out is a must. CIEM handles some of the most crucial data from your business. So, a professional is a must.
Technological Trends in Implementation
Addressing the success of CIEM, modern tech trends have started being a part of it for greater success. The following are some of those trends:
Artificial Intelligence
In order to manage all the sophisticated features offered by the CIEM, it seeks help from modern AI. For all those automations, reporting, data analysis, etc. AI plays a key role. Since all the cloud-related functions are generally off-premise, it must also ensure proper security over time.
Machine Learning
Primarily in ML, algorithms play a major role. These algorithm models are keenly trained for different situations. With these exceptionally trained models, they are ready to tackle any situation that comes across as a challenge.
Challenges and Solutions in Implementing CIEM.
Despite being such a modern program, CIEM comes with its own challenges. The following list gives out some of these challenges:
Inactive or Super Identities: In some situations, there might be some cases when some irrelevant or inactive identities are unreasonably provided with unlimited access.
Overpowered Active Identities: As the name suggests, in this case, some identities may have more permissions than what is actually needed.
Machine Identities Unauthorized Access: When there is a recurring task that remains the same across the times, it is typically handed out to an automated program. If there is any change in the output, the internals must have been updated.
Conclusion
Finally, CIEM is an essential SaaS solution that every small business must have. This article covered some of those advantages and reasons why you should get one. If you find it helpful, share it with your team members or peers.
