Major Forces that Drive Identity Auditing

Regulatory compliance and risk management are the main two forces that drive identity auditing. Compliance may be due to governmental regulations or due to internal policies. Various types of compliance include financial compliance, Healthcare compliance, insurance compliance etc. The main purpose of compliance is to provide a secured environment and mitigate risk factors.

Identity access management is an important aspect of identity audit. Who has access to what, is a very important aspect for any organization. Every organization possesses sensitive information, and only certain people have authorized access to those. Identity management becomes important in this regard. By doing identity audit from time to time, sensitive information can be secured.

IT GRC helps Manage Compliance

Regulations are gaining top priority these days. It’s not just one set of regulations that we are talking about, but regulations from different set of authority. Today firms have to address multiple sets of regulations from various authorities. Multiple regulations mean multiple auditing systems. With such a complicated web of compliance and identity access management, companies are ready to adapt to the simpler solution of managing compliance issues.

IT GRC helps to meet the challenges faced by various firms with regards to compliance. It helps us to make smarter decisions especially those related with IT risk issues, manage IT compliance, at the same time help with security concerns, especially those concerned with IT governance. IT GRC today is looked upon us a smarter way to address issues concerning IT Governance, Risk and compliance, not in silos but in an integrated way. IT GRC has helped organizations to become more efficient and has certainly reduced the costs an organization spends, especially in the areas concerning security. Such an integrated approach is a boon to any organization.

Formulating a successful IT GRC

IT GRC is relatively a new concept. IT governance, IT risk and IT compliance which were existing in silos has now been combined to perform more effectively. Such unified approach for IT GRC has resulted in greater efficiencies within organizations. Relatively a new concept, the success of IT GRC depends greatly on its implementation. The top level management needs to be very cautious in implementing IT GRC.

There should exist an understanding of each of the components of IT GRC and their dependencies on each other before implementation. All the three programs should run in parallel and in coordination with each other for a successful GRC program.This requires significant effort and persistence. The benefits may not be evident right away but certainly it could be felt in the long run.

Federated GRC Strategy

After federated Identity management, it is federated IT GRC which is taking the center stage today. GRC traditionally existed in silos; all the operations functioned independent of each other. Of late there is a drive to develop a more integrated GRC strategy, which could give rise to sharing of information, risks, investigations etc. This could result in more efficiency within the system, more transparency and less wastage of resources.

Without a federated GRC different parts of the organization end up functions differently in their own direction with their respective GRC silos. For e.g.: in the financial sector various areas like credit, market, operational, legal and regulatory risks operated independent of each other. With federated GRC all these are aligned to be more efficient and manageable. Errors, inefficiencies, and potential risks like IT risk could easily be identified, managed or averted easily. This creates a better business performance by reducing risk exposure. With identity audit as well as IT governance, enterprises can function efficiently and evade most of the risks involved.

Identity Access Management Governance

Identity thefts and confidentiality of highly sensitive information is the biggest concern facing many organizations today. This is a major concern especially in the areas on financial compliance, healthcare compliance and insurance compliance. Legally identity thefts have gained high recognition and legislatures are trying to draft more stringent rules in this regard. Enterprises are trying to reduce the risk by protecting the information they collect and ensuring that they use least amount of personally identifiable information possible.

Identity access management governance will help organizations reduce risk by controlling identity related information. It will deal to a great extent with identity auditing and management, i.e. how identity access information are used, stored and propagated between their systems. It will help organizations to define policies that will ensure sensitive personal information being shared securely and confidently between various applications in the organization. This will help organizations to keep a tab on who has access to what inside the enterprise.

Components of IT GRC

IT GRC (IT Governance, risk and compliance) is certainly yet to mature. Currently there is a lot of confusion as to what it is all about and what the subcomponents are? But it’s certainly proving to be beneficial to the organizations adapting to it. In addition to identity audit, a unified approach towards GRC increases efficiency, cost effectiveness and poses lesser risk.

IT governance is all about how decisions are made, who makes the decisions and who is to be held accountable; et al. IT risk deals with threats at every stage and in every area of the enterprise. Risk related to identity management- who has access to what, is the biggest question posed before the organization. IT compliance is about adhering to laws and regulations, primarily due to large data security and privacy requirements, like the ones demanded by financial compliance, healthcare compliance, Insurance compliance etc. Traditionally these components were dealt individually. But with IT GRC a holistic approach is gaining in popularity.

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