What is Identity Hygiene? 

Identity hygiene is a strategy that encompasses the maintenance of infrastructure, application, database and directory data to help implement effective identity and access management (IAM) programs that mitigate risk, ensure authorized access and prevent data breaches based on identity data integrity.

Reasons to implement Identity Hygiene 

Implementing strong identity hygiene is essential for enhancing cybersecurity by gaining full visibility into access chains, allowing precise knowledge of data access and permissions. Additionally, maintaining pristine identity hygiene is crucial for highly regulated organizations to comply with strict identity data and access requirements, reducing the risk of fines and security breaches.

How to implement Identity Hygiene 

Achieving good identity hygiene requires the remediation of issues with accounts and entitlements that can cause security risks with the help of automated tools and controls for managing user accounts, entitlements, roles and groups.  To start, it is important to understand the location and distribution of identity data across the enterprise. The focus should be on who has access to what in order to provide visibility. Secondly, it is best to standardize and automate identity data management to comprehend organizational complexities. Finally, ensuring compliance of identity data requires continuous monitoring and remediation efforts. Prioritizing identity hygiene is crucial as it forms the core of an organization’s security posture.