The rise of IAM to the front line of modern cybersecurity

The story of Identity and Access Management (IAM) could be made into a movie with all the drama. The industry and its players have gone from behind-the-scenes underdogs to starring roles. IAM, once just a part of IT, is now arguably the essential element in the security strategies of every organization today, navigating through a world where digital threats loom larger each day.

How identity and access management evolved to being the new perimeter of security

I like to think of IAM as a critical bridge combining technological advancements that connect us to destinations that were not feasible a short time ago. It ensures that as businesses increasingly rely on cloud computing, their security frameworks can handle the new challenges introduced by managing access to complex business applications. It enables dynamic interactions for consumers with all manner of advanced devices, from smart homes to modern automobiles.

In 2025, IAM is reaching a new level of importance: it’s become indispensable in securing digital identities and managing user access across diverse platforms. IAM’s evolution essentially places it at the forefront of how we protect and manage digital infrastructures as well as how people interact with a digitized world. 

IAM’s origin story 

Let’s rewind to the late 1990s when IAM started gaining momentum thanks to the internet boom and the rise of web-based services. This era was a major shift — moving away from traditional security assumptions, like relying on network boundaries for protection, to a more comprehensive approach where digital identities played the lead role, and they required technologies and capabilities to navigate a web-dominated domain.

Those early days of wider internet adoption also marked a turning point for protocols like SAML, which laid the groundwork for how IAM could adapt to changing conditions and evolve into what the industry has become today.

I remember thinking this is a big deal: we’re not just keeping bad guys out with blunt instruments; we can make more discrete decisions about who we let into our digital spaces.

Back then, companies like Securant and Netegrity pioneered these solutions and standards. But, as digital environments grew, IAM had to evolve. It seemed like every company, organization, or government was creating an internet presence, and they used the previous era’s technology in ways that were not efficient or convenient—every user needed a credential at every website that required a login. 

The massive increase in user IDs and passwords that users had to manage spurred improvements like single sign-on (SSO) and federated identity management.

Why identity management is essential

Identity management has become one of the most critical pillars of security today, especially as organizations shift to cloud, adopt hybrid work models, and embrace SaaS at scale. Here’s why it’s taken center stage:

• Perimeter is no longer physical: In a world where users, devices, and applications are everywhere, identity becomes the new control point.

• Access = Risk: If an attacker can compromise a user’s identity, they often get access to systems, data, and privileges — no firewall required.

• Zero Trust depends on identity: Identity is foundational to Zero Trust frameworks, where every access request is verified explicitly.

• Regulatory pressure: Standards like NIST, GDPR, HIPAA, and others emphasize strong identity governance.

So is identity the most important part? It depends on your threat model.For cloud-first organizations, identity may be the top security priority. but in OT or critical infrastructure, physical security or endpoint protection might matter more. Finally, in data-rich companies, encryption, data loss prevention, or insider threat detection might be just as important.

So while identity management is arguably the front line of modern cybersecurity, it works best when integrated with a broader strategy — covering endpoints, data, network, and user behavior.

Standards and market forces shaping IAM

Okta Identity 25 report showcases innovations brought about by industry titans like Eve Maler (a co-founder and chair of the group that created the above-mentioned SAML standard) and Atul Tulshibagwale, who also was actively supporting the development of SAML in the early days as CEO of Trustgenix. Like others on the ID25 list, these two have not rested on their laurels. Eve and Atul remain active in the standards development community working on the next generation of authorization and other standards. 

Back when I started with Burton Group in the early 2000s, identity was just starting to carve out its own niche apart from traditional security and directory services. It’s fascinating to think about how standards like LDAP set the stage for what IAM would become.

Evolution of identity standards 

The evolution of these standards is all about a narrative of innovation and a response to emerging needs. For example, LDAP was crucial for the initial phase, helping manage identities via directories. Then came SAML, which revolutionized how we handle assertions and exchanges between different domains. 

While SAML version 2.0 would emerge as the dominant variant of first generation federated SSO, there was considerable fragmentation initially as different factions in the industry created their own flavors of federation. Among them were Liberty Alliance’s (now Kantara Initiative) ID-FF, WS-Federation and Shibboleth.  

By the late-2000s, we were looking at more complex interactions across web services and applications, and that’s where OAuth and OpenID Connect came in. These were pretty important responses to the new challenges posed by mobile computing and cloud technology. The market pushed us towards solutions that ticked those security boxes but also had to be incredibly user-friendly and allow for easy access regardless of the platform.

The security landscape’s paradigm shift

We’ve seen a pretty big shift in the world of cybersecurity, specifically around how we think about protecting our digital spaces. Originally, IAM was often just an afterthought, tagged onto existing security measures. But it’s grown to be much more than that — it’s now part of our digital infrastructure.

Rethinking perimeter security

Back in the day, cybersecurity was all about the perimeter—think big, strong firewalls right at the edge of your network, designed to fend off any intruders before they could get anywhere near your critical data. These firewalls were the first line of defense, blocking anything suspicious based on the rules we set up.

As we all started using cloud services more and mobile devices popped up everywhere, sticking to this old-school, perimeter-only approach started showing some cracks. As I mentioned before, keeping bad guys away was equally important as managing who’s moving around inside these perimeters. With more complex digital interactions and the lines between internal and external activities getting all blurry, a firewall wasn’t enough.

Identity as the heart of security

And it’s not just me saying this — the brilliant minds in Okta’s Identity 25 have pushed IAM tech forward to meet these new challenges head-on. They’ve been pivotal in moving us towards strategies focusing on identity at the center of security, not just the perimeter.

Why does this matter now more than ever? In our current world where everything and everyone is connected digitally, securing identities isn’t just nice to have — it’s absolutely critical. 

Today, identity access management is practically essential for digital assets to work together seamlessly. In fact, according to Gartner, cybersecurity depends on IAM.  

The human element in IAM

An often-overlooked aspect of IAM’s evolution is its impact on the human element of digital interactions. In particular, user authentication is where we most frequently interact with an identity system and its complexity. 

We have forced users to remember too many passwords before single sign on capabilities were prevalent. Of course password based authentication is viewed as a weakness, so the IAM industry has introduced various multi-factor authentication technologies over the years, and passwordless techniques have emerged more recently. But the reality is that you are likely dealing with all these different authentication methods in a typical day, which can be very confusing to the average human. 

The impact of social media on IAM evolution

Social media has profoundly impacted reshaping the landscape of IAM. These platforms have transformed how we connect and interact online and introduced new challenges and opportunities in managing digital identities. 

The ubiquity of social media requires innovative IAM solutions that can overcome the complexities of user interactions, data privacy, and security concerns inherent to these platforms.

Social logins and beyond 

One of social media’s most significant contributions to the IAM domain has been the concept of social logins—the ability to use our social media credentials to access third-party websites and applications. 

This means you can log into sites using your Facebook, Google, or Twitter accounts instead of creating a new identity for each service. This approach, which gained popularity in the early 2010s, was designed primarily for user convenience but can also enhance security by reducing the number of passwords we need to manage and remember. Social login implementations are powered by the OAuth and OpenID Connect standards mentioned earlier.

Looking ahead: the future of IAM and AI

I think it’s clear by now that IAM is fundamentally intertwined with cybersecurity. Going forward, it looks like artificial intelligence (AI) is going to be intertwined with everything, including IAM. 

We see chatbot components included with many products, which act as an online assistant to help users navigate through a web site or provide online help. AI is also being used to analyze user activity and access logs, looking for anomalous behaviors. That’s a good thing, because the bad actors are making use of AI tools to create harder to detect malware, better phishing lures and more effective vulnerability detection. 

However, with great power comes great responsibility. Criminal organizations, governments as well as individuals can use AI to create deepfakes — incredibly convincing fake images, videos, or voices. How does one detect whether a video or audio recording is real or fake? We are witnessing the early stages of an arms race between those using AI for good and malicious purposes. 

Whether dealing with sophisticated cyber threats or ensuring we can all log in smoothly and securely wherever we are or what cloud services we use, IAM is at the heart of it all. It’s an exciting road ahead, and I’m thrilled to see where it takes us.

Dig deeper into the fundamental elements that make up identity and access mangament in this blog post: The 7 A’s of IAM