There’s nothing like being seen by a business as a regular. When you walk into a store or office, it means staff might greet you in person. Some will recall your previous purchase. Being a regular shows you’ve developed your relationship with an organization to the point where they use what they remember about you to provide additional value.
While being treated as a regular amid in-person experiences depends upon the memory power of employees, organizations can do something similar digitally. With customer identity and access management technology (CIAM), they can provide seamless experiences while keeping everyone’s information secure at the same time.
What Is CIAM?
CIAM is all about avoiding friction and safeguarding users’ personal data. Read on for a deep dive with everything that will help you decide whether it’s something you should add to your tech stack.
Definition and explanation of CIAM
As they interact and engage with organizations, people share a lot of identity-related information. CIAM represents a set of technologies that allow you to securely manage and store that data. This includes authenticating users and authorizing them to use the services they need, such as account profiles.
CIAM solutions are usually delivered through the cloud via the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model.
Key features of CIAM
Regardless of who provides them, CIAM solutions should cover the following areas:
- Privacy and security: Beyond authenticating and authorizing users, CIAM technologies may encrypt data and monitor for suspicious activities, including possible cases of fraud, and alert system admins to take defensive action. Some organizations also use CIAM as part of their efforts to comply with privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA.
- Unified customer profile enablement: Organizations might collect customer data from a range of sources and touchpoints, which can introduce complexity into how they provision digital services to the same person. CIAM provides the data integration capabilities necessary to provide a streamlined and consistent experience, regardless of how data was collected over the customer journey.
- Authentication flexibility: Depending on the nature of the organization’s business and the way it works with customer data, CIAM solutions need to be able to authenticate users in multiple ways. This could include single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA) or allowing users to receive a one-time passcode (OTP).
- Analytics and segmentation: Not all users are necessarily equal in terms of their access privileges. That’s why CIAM should be able to let organizations group similar kinds of users together and provide a dashboard-style view of how they’re behaving and engaging with digital experiences.
- Scalability: CIAM tends to be cloud-based for a reason: demands on compute resources can change in seconds, and organizations need to be able to respond accordingly. CIAM allows you to handle peak periods such as the holidays, when many customers might log into their account profile with a retailer to place orders, for example.
Benefits of implementing CIAM
CIAM technology allows organizations to treat known users like regulars by reauthenticating them using MFA or a password manager that simplifies logins. This can be done with millions of user identities and lets them focus on what they came online to do.
For business functions like marketing, CIAM provides a secure, effective and consent-based mechanism for capturing ever more information from users. This paves the way for providing more contextually relevant promotions, discounts and other offers that deepen customer engagement.
As CIAM use becomes more advanced, organizations can use the tools to provide more self-service digital experiences such as modifying their online account preferences and managing their consent to receive information from an organization.
On the back end, CIAM is a boon to IT departments that need to combat fraud, integrate more applications into existing digital experiences and oversee large volumes of identity data.
How Does CIAM Work?
You don't need a deep technical background to understand CIAM. This is a basic explainer.
Overview of the CIAM process
Once CIAM has been deployed, the user flow for accessing digital services becomes extremely straightforward:
- A customer will establish their identity with an organization by providing their name, address and other contact information as they register to set up their user profile or online account. They’ll also choose their password to complete this step.
- Customers will then authenticate themselves to access the set of services or digital experiences an organization provides. This can be done via SSO, MFA or whatever approach allows their credentials to be verified and their identity confirmed.
- Depending on their roles and the permissions they’re allowed as a result, CIAM will provide the authorization and access they need to use digital services and experiences.
- While this is going on, CIAM will encrypt the user’s identity data and securely store it in compliance with the most appropriate privacy regulations.
- When users need to update or make changes to their profiles, CIAM provides them the ability to edit permissions, preferences and other opt-in settings.
Authentication and authorization mechanisms in CIAM
At the most basic level, organizations need to ensure customers are who they say they are.
OAuth or SAML are some of the most common protocols to help manage this kind of authentication and authorization, verifying credentials that were established when profiles or accounts were first created.
Integration with existing systems and applications
Customers may already have credentials they’ve set up to access services from other organizations. They might have set up a Google account to access Gmail, Google Drive and Google Play, for instance. Others could have accounts with Apple, Microsoft or a social media service provider like Meta. CIAM should allow integration with these third-party systems and applications so customers have additional authentication options.
Why Is CIAM Important?
Making the business case for CIAM isn't hard. The value to organizations addresses several critical areas.
Robust customer identity and access management
Customers may connect with an organization through its web site, a mobile app or a third-party service. They shouldn’t have to figure out how to log into their accounts or worry that in doing so they’re exposing themselves to risks such as identity theft.
The identity and access management features associated with CIAM solutions provide a worry-free approach that respects their preferences and makes them feel safe.
Risks and consequences of inadequate CIAM
Organizations that don’t invest in some kind of CIAM technology could find themselves grappling with a host of security issues. Fraudsters could impersonate known customers, for example, accessing account information and stealing personal data.
More sophisticated cybercriminals could breach services that lack CIAM in order to tamper with code and inject sites with malware.
Even if rogue actors don’t wreak havoc, organizations with inadequate CIAM may run afoul of regulations and face fees or other penalties, as well as reputational damage among current and potential customers.
Enhancing customer trust and loyalty through CIAM
Loyalty is built in large part around how much customers trust an organization. CIAM technology helps build trust by demonstrating to customers that their identity information is only managed and shared in ways to which they’ve opted in.
That means their profiles won’t be provided to a partner if the customer doesn’t allow it, and that cyber threats are kept at bay. Offering self-service capabilities to manage profiles and providing contextually relevant marketing is also a proven loyalty booster.
How Does CIAM Protect Customer Data?
Convenience alone is not enough to justify an investment in CIAM. The bigger piece is how the technology can avoid negative outcomes for customers and organizations alike.
Role-based access control for personalized data protection
Customers should have freedom to manage their own identity information, but not take actions on data or systems the organization owns. For example, CIAM could allow a customer to view their order history within their profile, but not edit it and pretend they didn’t receive their order.
Role-based access control (RBAC) within CIAM lets IT departments assign the privileges that ensure the right access to the right privileges are only provided to the right people.
Multi-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized access
Many customer accounts and profiles are protected in part by password. CIAM provides an extra layer of protection in the event those credentials are too weak and are easily cracked by cybercriminals or forgotten by the customers who choose them.
With MFA, for example, customers will need to provide an additional credential – such as responding to a security question that is sent to their mobile device via text message – in order to complete the CIAM authentication process. This makes life a lot harder for threat actors who want to commit identity theft and conduct data breaches.
Secure storage and encryption of customer identities
CIAM takes a muti-pronged approach to securing personal information. Organizations can set limits on how much information admins can download, for example. Log tampering or attempts to escalate privileges can result in alerts sent to IT security teams.
Most importantly, CIAM encrypts data, which renders it useless if cybercriminals gain access to an account or profile.
Key Components and Features of CIAM
There are a number of CIAM solutions on the market. As you weigh the options from vendors, pay attention to these areas:
User registration and onboarding
When organizations present site visitors with a “sign in or register” button, what happens next should be fast and easy. CIAM delivers by supporting multiple authentication methods and offering a clear process for sharing identity information.
Identity verification and proofing
You don’t have to take customers’ word that they are who they say they are. CIAM solutions can make use of government-issued photo IDs, drivers’ licenses and other documentation (including a live photo) to prove and verify identities. This can also help ease any customer concerns as they’re signing up or signing into digital services.
Single sign-on (SSO) and federated identity management
SSO is a great option for allowing customers and other users to log in to multiple applications that a single organization owns. CIAM solutions also support federated identity management, which means users have a single point of access to services owned by several organizations.
CIAM vs. IAM
If you’re already familiar with identity and access management (IAM) solutions, it’s easy to assume CIAM covers the same ground. They are complementary but distinct technologies.
Differences between customer and workforce identity management
IAM often focuses on providing access to internal-facing systems by employees. In contrast, CIAM authenticates and authorizes members of the public to engage with web sites, mobile apps and other digital experiences, with the ability to personalize permissions and opt-ins.
CIAM’s self-service features are also different than IAM processes, which are often provisioned by IT departments or even HR departments as employees are hired or assigned new roles. CIAM solutions also tend to scale to much larger user bases than IAM tools.
Unique challenges and considerations in CIAM
Unless you’re a brand-new organization, chances are you’re not working with a clean slate from a technology perspective. That means you need to factor in legacy systems and infrastructure that will need to be integrated with any CIAM systems you choose to deploy.
CIAM also needs to roll out with a clear communications plan that helps customers understand how their identity information and preferences will be secured and managed. There should be careful thought into the best authentication protocols, the roles and privileges assigned to customer segments and procedures for acting on security alerts.
From a pure design standpoint, CIAM technology needs to manifest itself on websites and apps in a way that resembles an organization's existing branding.
Benefits of adopting CIAM over traditional IAM
Given that they are really for different kinds of users, the comparison between CIAM and IAM solutions only goes so far. However, IAM tools have often required some degree of employee training in order for them to be used effectively. CIAM solutions tend to be more intuitive to customers, even those who aren’t as tech-savvy.
Ensuring Data Privacy and Security With CIAM
Evaluating return on investment for CIAM solutions should always factor in security and privacy protection. Here's what you can get with the right tools:
Data protection regulations and compliance
When you’re thinking about which CIAM products and services to use, consider the jurisdictions in which you’re operating and the regulations you need to follow. For those serving customers in the EU, for instance, CIAM tools should support GDPR compliance, while CCPA rules are slightly different.
Talk to your vendor about how your business is growing and what sort of controls you need to demonstrate to avoid potential questions or issues with regulators.
Secure authentication methods in CIAM
CIAM authentication needs to be adaptive depending on whether an organization needs to let customers use SSO, federated identity management or MFA. Explore options around biometric authentication and other contextual factors that could further improve the customer experience.
Managing consent and user preferences
Never assume that customer opt-ins are a once-and-done exercise. CIAM should provide them with the flexibility and control they need to change their permissions and preferences at any time. The right solution will provide the full spectrum of features to capture, store, manage and enforce consent information throughout the customer journey.
As you take the next step with CIAM, work with a trusted provider of credential management and authentication. Start your LastPass trial today.
