Setting Up IAM: Managing Permissions to Ensure Compliance

Updated: 10/03/2024 - 5:01

Time to read: 5 minutes

One of the biggest issues for many companies is ensuring compliance. This work becomes easier with identity and access management (IAM) software. IAM allows administrators to specify strict access protocols to control which networks and resources users can use and how they can use them. In short, the software provides visibility into and governance over what employees can and cannot do.

Let's look closely at four different compliance requirements—SOX, HIPAA, HITECH, and PCI—to evaluate how IAM simplifies compliance.

SOX

In 2002, following financial scandals, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, called Sarbox or SOX for short, was enacted into law. Its aim was to improve investor confidence by making corporate practices more transparent. Among others, requirements include measures for:

policy enforcement
risk assessment
fraud reduction
compliance auditing

A major purpose of SOX is to make corporate financial statements more reliable. The Act provides for civil and criminal penalties for noncompliance, so heeding it is very important.

IT is obviously crucial for SOX. After all, mos