AKA Identity: Revolutionizing Identity Management With Intelligent Data-Driven Insights
For many organizations I consult with and cybersecurity leaders I advise, identity governance remains a critical yet challenging area. Traditional identity governance and administration (IGA) solutions have been criticized for their complexity, high costs, and frequent failures. Meet AKA Identity, a company that promises a fresh approach to these problems through advanced data integration, AI, and analytics. Founded by Will Lin, AKA Identity aims to disrupt the identity management sector with its innovative strategies and technology. This tech note aims to highlight the innovative ways AKA Identity is transforming the landscape of IGA.
Company Background and Will Lin's Vision
Will Lin, the CEO of AKA Identity, brings a unique perspective to the company, having transitioned from a successful career as a venture capitalist. His experience in the VC world, particularly in the identity investment space, where he made many investments, equipped him with insights into what makes or breaks identity solutions. This background has been pivotal in steering AKA Identity toward a data-centric approach to identity management, aiming to address the shortcomings of traditional IGA systems.
Source: AKA Identity, Analyst Briefing Deck, 2024
The Shortcomings of Traditional IGA Solutions
Lin has pointed out several key issues with legacy IGA solutions:
- High Failure Rate: Over 50% of IGA projects do not meet their objectives.
- Cost: These systems are notoriously expensive, often due to their legacy architecture.
- Manual Processes: Significant manual effort is needed for creating connectors and managing integrations.
- Limited Analytics: The analytics provided are often not sophisticated enough for modern needs.
- Focus on Administration: While these solutions excel in workflow and administration, they fall behind in intelligent data handling.
These criticisms highlight the market’s readiness for a new approach, which AKA Identity seeks to fulfill.
Source: AKA Identity, Analyst Briefing Deck, 2024
AKA’s Approach
Data Management
AKA’s strategy centers around building a native data platform that focuses on identity. By partnering with experts from Jask, known for their prowess in security data engineering, AKA aims to leverage high-quality data integration and analytics. This approach not only helps in managing identity data more effectively but also scales to meet evolving needs.
Embracing AI, Data Analytics, and SOAR
AKA Identity embraces AI, data analytics, and security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) to enhance its approach to identity management. As an AI-centric company, AKA leverages the latest in AI and data analytics technologies to process and analyze vast amounts of data, providing deep, insightful analytics. The core of its operation involves a robust data platform that not only integrates diverse identity data sources but also analyzes this data to deliver actionable insights. Furthermore, AKA extends its capabilities into the realm of SOAR, with the goal of not only identifying security issues within the identity domain but also offering solutions for remediation and improving overall security efficiency.
Understanding Data Pipelines and Analytics at AKA
Understanding data pipelines and analytics at AKA Identity involves recognizing the importance of these elements in AKA’s operational framework. Data pipelines are essential for gathering and processing information from a variety of sources, ensuring it flows seamlessly into AKA’s systems. Concurrently, AKA employs advanced data analytics to extract meaningful insights from this data, which in turn informs and enhances decision-making in identity management.
Source: AKA Identity, Analyst Briefing Deck, 2024
Detective and Preventive Controls
At AKA Identity, the approach to control mechanisms includes both preventive and detective measures. Currently, the emphasis is on preventive controls, which leverage data analysis to preemptively address potential issues before they materialize. Looking ahead, AKA plans to bolster its detective controls, enhancing the ability to identify problems after they occur. This will involve adopting methodologies aligned with identity threat detection and response (ITDR) and user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) to provide a comprehensive security strategy.
Handling Data Streams
AKA ingests data from identity providers (IdP), HR information systems (HRIS), and various applications, analyzing it for insights on data hygiene, access, and security risks. The platform then uses these insights for preventive measures, ensuring security and compliance.
Annotation: These insights are presented with a severity to help order the priority.
Source: AKA Identity
Managing Inactive Accounts and User Access Reviews (UAR):
- Inactive Accounts: By monitoring usage patterns, AKA identifies and flags accounts for deactivation if unused for specified periods.
- User Access Reviews: The platform aids in streamlining UAR by highlighting redundant access, ensuring reviews are thorough and efficient.
Addressing Data Hygiene and Redundant Permissions
AKA focuses on cleaning up data, identifying and resolving issues like duplicate roles and unnecessary permissions, thus enhancing the efficiency of access control systems.
Source: AKA Identity
Future With IPSIE and Similar Protocols
While recognizing the potential of protocols like the Interoperability Profile for Secure Identity in the Enterprise (IPSIE) for future integration, AKA currently prioritizes established methods in data engineering and analytics, preparing its modular platform for future compatibility.
Actionable Insights and Decision-Making
AKA not only provides insights but also facilitates direct actions based on these insights through its platform, ensuring that users can implement security measures effectively.
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Actions
Actions that can be taken on insights are restricted by RBAC, ensuring that only authorized personnel can make changes and maintaining security and governance.
Identity Attributes and ABAC
AKA’s goal with attribute-based access control (ABAC) is to shift toward a more dynamic, context-aware access control system, supporting zero-trust models and providing more granular access policies.
Identity Lifecycle Management
AKA supports the entire lifecycle of identities, from joining the organization to changing roles to leaving, ensuring access is appropriately managed at each stage.
Handling Qualitative Data and Assessments
The platform allows for qualitative insights to be uploaded and tracked, providing a comprehensive approach to identity management that includes both quantitative and qualitative aspects.
Multifactor Authentication (MFA) and Assurance Levels
AKA tracks and analyzes MFA usage, offering insights to improve security by recommending stronger authentication methods (higher authentication assurance levels) where needed.
Application Catalog and Security
By mapping out applications and their security models, AKA helps organizations maintain an updated application catalog, enhancing visibility and control over application access.
Source: AKA Identity
Single Source of Truth
With its capability to integrate various data sources, AKA serves as an effective single source of truth for identity and access information, providing a unified view for decision-making.
Our Take
In the analyst briefing, AKA Identity’s CEO Will Lin provided a comprehensive overview of the company’s vision and strategy. Having transitioned from a successful career in venture capitalism, Lin brings a unique perspective to the identity management sector. He noted that the current state of IGA systems, characterized by high failure rates, exorbitant costs, and inadequate data analytics, presents a prime opportunity for market disruption.
Lin and his team introduced themselves, with key members detailing their roles, and emphasized the company’s commitment to a data-centric approach. Their approach is rooted in building a native data platform, leveraging the expertise of top data engineers from Jask, to address the inefficiencies of legacy systems. The platform aims to manage identity data more effectively by balancing data and identity, thereby offering solutions to a wide array of identity use cases. Lin highlighted that this strategy aligns with the growing trend toward data-centric identity solutions, exemplified by developments like ITDR and identity security posture management (ISPM).
The discussion also touched on the balance between preventive and detective controls within identity management. While AKA’s current focus leans toward preventive measures to tackle issues like overprovisioning and access for terminated users, there is a plan to expand into detective controls, including ITDR and UEBA, which would enhance AKA’s offerings by addressing security issues after they happen.
The team provided an impressive demo of the platform, still in pre-alpha development, showcasing its capabilities in generating insights, managing data hygiene, and enabling direct actions to rectify identified issues. The platform’s integration with various systems like IdPs, HRISs, and customer relationship management (CRM) systems was demonstrated, showing how it can explore and pivot around data to provide contextual understanding of access and accounts, crucial for effective identity lifecycle management.
Our meeting concluded with discussions on future plans, highlighting AKA Identity's ongoing efforts to enhance its platform with additional insights and actions. This focus on innovation, combined with its potential application in complex environments, positions AKA as a pioneer worth considering in the realm of next-generation IGA.
Source: AKA Identity, Analyst Briefing Deck, 2024
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