Identity & Access Management
IAM creates the foundation of a secure digital identity strategy. PAM Xpert designs IAM architectures that meet compliance requirements and increase operational efficiency.
IAM and PAM — complementary disciplines
Identity & Access Management (IAM) is the overarching framework for managing digital identities and their associated access rights across IT resources — ensuring the right person accesses the right resources at the right time, and only those resources.
PAM is a specialist discipline within the IAM ecosystem focusing exclusively on privileged high-risk identities. In practice: IAM without PAM leaves the most dangerous identity segment unsecured; PAM without IAM lacks the broader governance foundation.
Regulatory foundation: ISO 27001:2022 Annex A controls 5.15–5.18 require demonstrable IAM processes. NIS2 Art. 21 mandates MFA and access policies for essential and important entities. BSI IT-Grundschutz ORP.4 defines binding requirements for identity and access management.
Building blocks of a modern IAM architecture
Identity Governance & Administration (IGA)
The governance foundation: role-based entitlement assignment, recertification campaigns (regular review of access rights), segregation of duties (SoD) to prevent conflicts of interest, and complete audit trails for compliance evidence.
Automated Provisioning and Deprovisioning
Automated creation, modification and removal of user accounts and permissions based on HR systems — the Joiners-Movers-Leavers (JML) process. SCIM (RFC 7643/7644) is the current standard for provisioning-based integrations. Manual provisioning inevitably leaves access ghosts when employees depart.
RBAC / ABAC
Role-Based Access Control assigns rights to roles and roles to people — not rights directly to individuals. This reduces assignment overhead, simplifies recertification and enables traceable access models. Attribute-Based Access Control extensions enable context-dependent access rules for zero trust policies.
Multi-Factor Authentication
MFA is now a regulatory minimum standard (NIS2 Art. 21, DORA, ISO 27001:2022 control 5.17). Modern implementations use adaptive MFA that incorporates risk signals — device, location, time, behavioural anomalies — minimising friction for legitimate users while strengthening security for high-risk access.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
SSO enables users to access all authorised applications following a single authentication. SAML 2.0 and OpenID Connect (OIDC) are the dominant protocol standards. SSO improves user experience and simultaneously increases security through centralised authentication control.
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