Digital Identity and Access Management (IAM) Concepts
The basics of knowing who accesses what
Identity and access management, known as IAM, is the discipline that ensures the right person or system has the right level of access to the right resources at the right time, combining digital identity, which is a user's unique representation within systems, with the policies that determine what that identity can do. This matters in practice because IAM is the foundation on which practically every other security control is built, since robust firewalls or advanced encryption are useless if anyone can authenticate with weak credentials or if the permissions granted don't match what their role really needs. A key nuance is distinguishing authentication, which confirms that someone is who they claim to be, from authorization, which determines what they can do once their identity is confirmed, two concepts that are often confused but require different controls and design decisions.