Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Identity and Access Management is Critical to Operations and Security

Aberdeen Group has just published a research study on identity management that you might find interesting.
“Identity and access management limits access to an organization’s resources to just those with legitimate access. The fact of the matter is that without it, organizations are at risk. The larger the organization, the more resources are in need of protection, the greater the stakes,” said Carol Baroudi, senior research director, security, at Aberdeen. “Unless mitigated by automation, the greater the complexity, the longer it takes to grant and revoke access. Decreasing time to legitimate access translates to a gain in productivity. Decreasing time to denying unauthorized access translates to narrowing a window of vulnerability.”

Quest Software co-sponsored the research - after the fact - but as part of our deal you get free access to Aberdeen's report. Just click on the link above to access it. What I liked about this study is how Aberdeen compared "best in class" companies to "industry average" and "laggards" with respect to their implementation of identity and access management. Here's a tidbit:

  • Provisioning - Best in class: Provision/de-provision in less than 4 hours! Industry average: 3 days or less. Laggards: 4 days or more.

As someone who spends money on market research this was the very first study that I (co-)sponsored after the report was written. Quest didn't get to participate in the research definition, methodology or surveys but I liked the results enough to sponsor it.

I hope you find it useful. I did!

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