Key takeaways
Centralized identity management is a process for managing digital identities from one central authority.
Identity consolidation reduces IT workload, strengthens security, and improves user experience.
Centralized identity management provides the identity foundation for zero-trust security models.
Centralized identity management focuses on identity consolidation while IAM covers the broader framework of access policies and controls.
What is identity management?
Identity management is the practice of creating, maintaining, and securing digital identities across an organization's systems. It ensures that users have access to multiple system resources. Centralized identity management takes this practice further by consolidating all identity functions into a single platform.
Centralized identity management: manage digital identities from one central authority
Users sign in to multiple applications on a daily basis. If each one requires password credentials, this puts a burden on the user to maintain a different strong password for each, and a burden on the applications to authenticate the user for each sign-in request. Centralized identity management addresses the limitations of application-by-application authentication by consolidating identity control into a single platform. Password managers help users store credentials securely, but they do not verify the user's identity or enforce access policies across applications.
Centralized identity management takes the burden off the user and the individual application and moves it to a central platform that is responsible for managing the entire user lifecycle from provisioning and ongoing authentication to deprovisioning. The user signs in to one workspace from which they can access all their applications and services.
How centralized identity management works
Centralized identity management operates on the basis of users having one primary identity that governs how they are authenticated and what they are authorized to do on the system. Centralized identity management continually manages the users' identity and authentication over their entire life cycle.
Functions of centralized identity management
The functions of centralized identity management can be grouped into three categories: provisioning/deprovisioning, authentication, and policy enforcement.
Provisioning/deprovisioning: during initial user onboarding, the system creates the user account and propagates it to all connected applications. The account will stay with the user throughout their lifetime with the system. User information—such as username, password, roles, and permissions—are held in a central repository, like a cloud-based directory service or enterprise identity platform. Administrators can grant new or updated users access rights as they are onboarded or approved. When a user leaves the organization or has a significant role change, centralized identity management allows the user account to be updated across all systems at the same time.
Authentication: the centralized identity management authentication service verifies that the user is who they say they are at registration (identity verification) and that they are the same person who registered at subsequent sign-ins (identity authentication). The centralized identity management system performs continuing user authentication on behalf of the available applications. An identity provider (IdP) like Cisco Duo confirms the user identity rather than applications having to manage credentials themselves. Duo acts as an identity provider that verifies user identity through phishing-resistant, multi-factor authentication (MFA), passwordless login, and device trust policies. Identity management works with access management systems such as role-based access control (RBAC) and attribute-based access control ABAC) for centrally managed control of who has access to which resources.
Policy enforcement: the centralized identity management system includes procedures to ensure that identity management rules and processes are uniformly applied across the system. The system can push security policies—such as password complexity and multi-factor authentication rules—to the entire application ecosystem, simplifying governance and auditability.
Benefits of centralized identity management
Managing user identity from a central platform with users having one primary profile has benefits for both the user and the organization. For the user, benefits center on user experience. For the organization, benefits include security, support, and auditing.
Better user experience and reduced IT workload
Centralized identity management allows single sign-on where instead of signing on to each application and inputting credentials separately, the user signs in once and is authorized to all allowed apps. Since the user only has to remember one password, users experience less frustration and higher productivity. Further, SSO encourages strong password hygiene because the user can stop worrying about remembering multiple passwords while not having to wait for password resets if credentials are forgotten or stolen increases user productivity.
Manually managing users across multiple applications can be time-consuming for IT teams and is prone to error. Centralized identity management can automate user management, reducing IT workload and the potential for errors. Fewer password problems and reset requests can mean fewer support tickets and faster IT response to other issues. And with all user data in a central repository, user provisioning and deprovisioning are easier and faster, reducing the potential for having orphaned accounts and leftover privileges.
Centralized identity management also supports broader security tool consolidation by replacing multiple disconnected authentication systems with a single platform. Organizations that centralize identity management reduce IAM tool sprawl, eliminating redundant systems and simplifying their security stack.
Improved security and reduced attack surface
Eliminating scattered user accounts reduces the organization's cyberattack surface. Since users don't have to use multiple passwords, there is less risk that credentials will be compromised or abused, leading to unauthorized access. So, it's easier for security teams to enforce strong password policies and to apply least-privilege access, integrating MFA, passwordless technology, and adaptive, context-aware policies into a centralized, user-friendly platform.
Managing access policies centrally can help avoid gaps in coverage caused by inconsistent or misaligned authentication and access rules. The same authentication and authorization standards and policies can be enforced across all applications. For more information on authentication see learn article: Authentication vs. Authorization.
Compliance visibility and auditability
Having a centralized system makes it easy to see who has access to what resources and at what level. This makes it easier to detect anomalies in access control, detect unusual behavior, and investigate security incidents. Audit logs can be helpful when troubleshooting problems, identifying potential risks, and demonstrating compliance to data security and privacy regulations.
Support for zero-trust security models
Centralized identity management provides the identity foundation required for zero-trust models, where every resource request is considered risky until proven otherwise. Continuous identity verification and authorization, rather than once at sign-on, helps reduce the potential for accidental or intentional unauthorized access.
Centralized identity management considerations
Before implementing centralized identity management, organizations should consider several factors.
The role of identity consolidation in centralized identity management
Users in organizations with complex digital ecosystems may have multiple identities fragmented across directories, cloud platforms, legacy applications, and third-party services. This can lead to increased security risks due to duplicated accounts and inconsistent permissions. Identity consolidation is the process of unifying those multiple user identities. Consolidating identities along with their credentials and access controls and using the capabilities of an IdP allows organizations to establish a single source of truth for user authentication and authorization. Identity consolidation can help in the administration of zero-trust frameworks.
Identity consolidation's focus is the reduction of identity fragmentation by merging duplicate user accounts, standardizing identity attributes, and aligning identities across the organization. Centralized identity management is the operational system that manages authentication, authorization, and lifecycle processes. Having unified identities reduces complexity and risk when deploying centralized identity management.
The difference between centralized identity management and identity and access management (IAM)
Centralized identity management and identity and access management (IAM) sound like they might be the same thing. And indeed they are sometimes confused as one and the same. They are not, although there can be some overlap of functionality. Centralized identity management is a method of authenticating identities for secure logins. IAM is a broader security framework that uses those identities to administer secure access to resources.
As a centralized architecture for managing user identities, centralized identity management provides a platform that serves as the single source of truth for accounts and their attributes. It focuses on consolidating user directories and login flows, allowing users to authenticate once for all applications and administrators to manage identities from one place.
IAM also addresses policies, processes, and controls to enable secure access across the organization for the complete identity lifecycle. While centralized identity management operates in a centralized model, IAM can be either centralized or decentralized. For a comprehensive look at identity and access management as a discipline, see learn article on IAM.
Security-first centralized identity management
Centralized identity management and identity and access management techniques can help secure resources against credential-based attacks—such as phishing and password spraying facilitated by weak identity management.
See for yourself how Duo's IAM platform with phishing-resistant MFA can strengthen your organization's security with a free 30-day trial.