What Is Identity Governance and Administration?

Identity governance and administration (IGA) is one of the most important parts of cybersecurity for an organization. Enabling and maintaining digital identities for a company’s employees is the heart of identity governance. The definition of IGA falls under an even larger umbrella of cybersecurity: identity access and management (IAM). IAM focuses on who has access to your software and sensitive information—as well as how much access each person has, when they have access, and just about any other aspect of “access” you can imagine (and then some). Identity governance is just one piece of that access puzzle—namely, the one that monitors users, keeps track of their credentials, and so on.

As you’ve probably figured out, keeping tabs on everyone’s user permissions gets real tricky, real quickly. You have to not only track who has access, but what they have access to—and that can change as someone moves through an organization or alters their role. Keeping track of this isn’t just a matter of organization but security, especially when private information is involved. In most cases, you’re better off using a specific tool to track their user permissions rather than doing it manually. But what should you be looking for out of identity governance solutions, and what IGA tools are going to be the best for your organization? Let’s take a closer look and find out.

What Is an Identity Governance Administration Solution?

An IGA solution will provide you the tools, processes, and automations to make identity governance a much smoother, more streamlined process. These tools help you consolidate all user permissions into one viewable platform, monitor all their specific permissions, and even automate the auditing process to make sure all loose ends are tied up—for example, when an employee leaves, or when someone gets promoted and needs access to new platforms.

The right IGA solution will help you monitor your access points in a way that’s easy, simple, and compliant. This helps protect not just your organization, but your employees. IGA tools also help take a big load off your IT team, by automating certain tickets and speeding up the response time for others. If your IT team is less bogged down with user requests, audits, and permissions workflows, they can spend more time working on other issues—and they’ll be all the less stressed because of it!

What Are the Primary Functions of an Identity Governance and Administration Solution?

The main purpose of any IGA solution is to make monitoring your user permissions an easier, more consolidated, and more organized process. Some things you can expect from quality IGA tools are:

• Simplifying the onboarding and offboarding process for users
• Customizing policy-based approval workflows for each individual user
• Automating the access review process for all users
• A self-service portal for employees to request software user access
• Better management of costs, productivity, and operations as a whole

The best solutions (like ours at Lumos) bring all these components to your IGA toolbox. What used to be hours of painstakingly combing through user permissions becomes a few swift seconds of automations, audits, and reviews. Through a balance of automation and customization, you’re able to create workflows that match your policies while cutting down on the repetitive, rote tasks that go into monitoring user access. You’ll also have a much better way to identify risky behaviors in your tech stack, prevent cybersecurity breaches, and many other safeguards to better protect your organization.

What Can an Identity Management Tool Do for Your Organization?

If that tool is Lumos, the answer is “quite a bit”! We’re proud to say that our software can work wonders—and in fact, it already has for many happy customers. Our comprehensive, all-in-one solution for tech stack management will not only improve your cybersecurity, but decrease the workload on your IT team while doing it. And as your organization grows, Lumos can grow right alongside it, easily accommodating more users, more softwares, and more permissions workflows. No matter how complicated your tech stack gets, our interface will stay user-friendly, intuitive, and easy to use for your IT team.

If you’re ready to see the power of user management firsthand, book a demo with us today. We look forward to working with you and making your lives easier!