Source: [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/access-management-ask-gerardus-blokdyk/)  
Author: [Gerardus Blokdyk](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerardblokdijk/)  
Publication date: January 29, 2022  
Retrieved from on January 31, 2022

Relevant ISO 27001 clauses/controls:
- [ISO 27001 A 9 Access control](../../Standards/ISO27x/legacy/ISO%2027001%202013/ISO%2027001%20A%209%20Access%20control.md)
- [[ISO 27001 C 9.2 Internal audit]]
- [ISO 27001 A 18 Compliance](../../Standards/ISO27x/legacy/ISO%2027001%202013/ISO%2027001%20A%2018%20Compliance.md)

Related:
- [Identity and Access Management (IAM)](../../💡Drafts%20and%20Ideas/Identity%20and%20Access%20Management%20(IAM).md)

## Organized by Key Themes: Identity, Access, Cloud, Security, Management, Data, Network, Risk, Development, Project:

  

IDENTITY:

  

How is IAM integrated?

Safeguard that your design is determining Identity and Access Management requirements by evaluating business strategies and requirements, implementing IAM and information security standards, conducting system and vulnerability analyses and risk assessments, recommending secure architecture aligned to business architecture, and identifying/driving remediation of integration issues in IAM. 

  

What changes in demand for IAM capability will be driven by business and technology trends?

Make sure the IAM Engineer provides technical consulting for identity and access management architecture, design, and strategy; and is responsible for leading technical architecture and product integration for solutions across hybrid on-premises, multi-cloud and SaaS ecosystems, and influencing engineering decisions and outcomes that drive business success. 

  

How does access governance fit into your GRC roadmap?

Make headway so that your staff is creating, maintaining and driving identity and access management technology strategy and its roadmap. 

  

What challenges are you currently experiencing with Identity and Access Management?

Produce workable solutions that meet demands of business situations using identity analytics, evaluating IAM and security processes for efficiency and agility. 

  

What were the drivers on strategic and tactical level in your organization to implement IAM?

Achieve strategic objectives in IAM using breakthrough thinking to create strategic plans and roadmap plans; ensure an overall architecture with consistent uses of data and significant reuse of technology and business services throughout building design; drive integration across all aspects of identity architecture. 

  

Does your organization conduct and maintain an inventory of all physical access devices?

Administer, troubleshoot, and maintain system and platform health for Identity Governance and Privileged Access Management solutions. 

  

Does your organization allow workers to bring their own devices?

Translate business strategy into requirements and work closely with the Identity Management engineering teams to bring them to life. 

  

Is the funder delivering on its commitments in a timely and efficient manner?

Check that your organization is involved in an IT environment as an architect delivering enterprise solutions in the IAM domain; Strong knowledge in user provisioning, directory services, authentication, authorization, public key infrastructure and identity federation. 

  

What do you need to educate senior management on with respect to business impact?

Manage the Digital Identity and Access Management (On Premises and Cloud) solutions and operational deliverables. 

  

What is needed to develop IAM architecture and improve IAM process maturity?

Invest in analyzing potential security tools and applications to enhance and improve the processes, procedures, and functions of security and identity management team. 

  

ACCESS:

  

How do you secure data and maintain compliance with increasingly strict regulations?

Manage Access Management systems and work closely with IT and other business units to ensure identity and access solutions meet or exceed security policies and regulatory compliance requirements. 

  

Are identity and access management policies and procedures established, documented, approved, communicated, implemented, applied, evaluated, and maintained?

Make sure the Identity and Access Management (IAM) Product and Service Manager is responsible for the business management of your (internal) customer facing IAM services as well as the acquisition and lifecycle of all related vendor tools and technologies required to maintain the service. 

  

Who develops system and communications protection plans?

Make sure the Lead Consumer Identity and Access Management Architect designs and develops IT applications architecture solutions to business problems in alignment with the enterprise architecture direction and standards. 

  

Are cloud applications supported?

Be confident that your strategy is participating in Identity and Access Management governance and processes to drive IAM service adoption and evidence gathering to support audit requests. 

  

Which IAM practices help your organization meet GDPR requirements?

Certify your process works with business units, development, project and application support teams to define and implement functional security access requirements and determine appropriate security restrictions in the systems to meet those requirements. 

  

Can new apps be easily integrated into the identity infrastructure?

Oversee that your design works with business units to define user roles enterprise wide and configure and integrate new applications into the identity access management system. 

  

What about a proactive approach to security that integrates risk control into its very fabric?

Collaborate with business and technical teams to research, plan, and design a robust, best in class Identity and Access Management (IAM) architecture that aligns and integrates with other Enterprise level IT efforts. 

  

Is the evolving design going to work?

Support new (internal) customer requirements for the creation of new access management policies, identity management workflows, and other COTS software configurations, as well as evolving security policies, related technologies, and new credential rules. 

  

Are access points a sufficient distance from intersections to minimize conflicts?

Provide solutions architecting and project management functions for the Identity and Access Management (IAM) platform, and serve as a liaison with the business to define requirements and translate them into automation solutions. 

  

What can financial organizations do to improve email security?

Analyze business and other data processing problems to implement and improve Identity and Access Management systems (IAM). 

  

CLOUD:

  

Who determines the optimal use of services?

Make sure your design is involved in developing and coordinate cloud architecture across diverse areas including Application Development, Identity and Access Management, Network, Data management and Security to determine functional and non-functional requirements. 

  

What capability is provided for PaaS customers to specify firewall rules, load balancer policy, name service entries, etc.?

Develop experience working with Identity and Access Management IAM products and the cloud Azure, AWS, GCP, etc. 

  

What are the consequences that the service is delivered to the wrong person?

Make sure your organizations innovative product portfolio offers (internal) customers an integrated set of core services including identity governance, provisioning, and access management delivered on-premises or from the cloud (IAM-as-a-service). 

  

Which user or application initiated the event?

Assure your strategy is managing identity and access management solutions for the cloud infrastructure. 

  

What access is provided to logs of activity within PaaS customer environments?

Assure your process is involved in cloud based identity and access management (hosted or aaS) for IaaS, PaaS or SaaS. 

  

How are costs negotiated for upgrading or expanding services?

Make sure the Solutions Architect engages with (internal) customers to understand the business drivers, assess application portfolios, design reliable and cost effective cloud native architectures. 

  

Is security responsible for physical and environmental protection?

Ensure your team is responsible for the development and operations of critical cloud infrastructure and platform services for your public safety SaaS offering. 

  

What mechanisms protect your environment from other IaaS customers?

Assure your operation is involved in securing cloud services, applications and integrations including Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). 

  

What access management concept defines what rights or privileges a user has?

Verify that your team has deep expertise in leading the delivery of enterprise level (internal) customer Cloud deployment projects. 

  

SECURITY:

  

Who should be responsible for addressing identity fraud?

Make sure the Information Security team is responsible for incident response, security assessments, risk mitigation programs, vulnerability scanning, identity and access management and integrating systems across the enterprise. 

  

How do you package and sell your support?

Make sure the Identity and Access Management Strategist, in conjunction with the Security Architecture and engineering team, is responsible for the planning, building, delivery and support of a secure IAM program. 

  

Are assets properly utilizing organization identities, credentials, and access management services?

Establish that your strategy is involved in assessment, implementation, optimization, and documentation of broad set of security technologies and processes such as data protection, cryptography, key management, identity and access management systems. 

  

When will staff be available with the skills to research and resolve?

Develop experience assessing Cyber Threat Fusion Center controls, techniques and tools; cryptographic controls and solutions; logging and monitoring; anti-virus; network security; data loss protection; endpoint protection; offensive security research team controls; third party information security risk controls; vulnerability; configuration; patch and access management controls. 

  

Have automated mechanisms been integrated to the audit monitoring, analysis, and reporting?

Develop experience managing Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems, intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDS/IPS) IDS/IPS, identity and access management (IAM) systems, and other network and system monitoring tools. 

  

Are the enterprises access control processes more manual or automated?

Develop experience implementing core security controls such as inventory management, logging and intrusion detection, vulnerability scanning, secrets management, identity and access management for cloud services and infrastructure assets. 

  

Are significant security responsibilities defined, with qualifications criteria, and documented?

Verify that your organization designs and engineers comprehensive access management and network security technical solutions based on business requirements and defined technology standards. 

  

Are the enhancements made to the Access Control Category enough to ensure the breadth of Identity and Access Management is addressed?

Determine baseline security configuration standards for ICS/OT/IoT, cloud, operating systems, networking, encryption, data security, data classification, and identity and access management (IAM) assuring architectures meet security best practices that reduce risk and enhance security. 

  

Are user access rights requested by user management, approved by system owners and implemented by IT?

Research, design, and implement Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions for systems to ensure the appropriate context-based and permission-based security policies are enforced on users and their devices and real-time. 

  

MANAGEMENT:

  

What is your organizations position on supporting past releases?

Make sure your staff is responsible for the administration of identity and access management (IAM) solutions supporting the business for security related identity and access issues. 

  

Do you have clearly defined development models that enable right speed?

Ensure your Identity and Access Management team focuses on helping your (internal) clients design, implement and operate effective access controls that protect against threats, support business objectives, and enable growth. 

  

Who is responsible for maintaining the security categorization?

Ensure your organization responds to strategies provided by the Architecture and Engineering Team and its management for implementation and oversight, and is responsible for creating and maintaining the Identity and Access Management program and standards. 

  

How does your Identity Management Solution enable or improve web based Single Sign On?

Verify that your team improve data protection, data loss prevention (DLP), and identity and access management technologies and procedures for on premise and cloud services. 

  

How many authoritative sources of person data do you anticipate using to create person records?

Oversee security areas as vulnerability management, identity and access management (IAM), endpoint detection and response (EDR), incident response, applications, and infrastructure security. 

  

What information would be required by a protective monitoring team in your organization?

Invest in review of system security monitoring and analysis tools, Identity and Access Management platforms, IT GRC platforms, and DLP systems. 

  

Do you have a Vision & Roadmap for your IAM Strategy?

Check that your personnel is responsible for setting the strategic direction of the Identity and Access Management security architecture and roadmap.

  

How does the vendors total cost of ownership compare when you include customizations, upgrades, infrastructure, and other ongoing costs?

Make sure your workforce areas of focus include enterprise security management, threat and vulnerability management, identity, and access management as well as data privacy and protection. 

  

Is the cpm currently performing an account management task?

Establish that your group is involved in IT/IS architecture, performing technical assessments of network infrastructure, identity and access management, data management, incident management, threat and vulnerability management and encryption technologies. 

  

Is your cybersecurity program aligned with your business strategy?

Work closely with the Identity Access and Security Assurance teams to align access management in accordance to internal policies. 

  

DATA:

  

Can users merge identities through the self service web interface?

Perform complex Identity Credential and Access Management systems development and design work that include data modeling, development cost projections, software architecture analysis and design. 

  

What information is reported concerning monitoring activities?

Check that your team has leadership involvement implementing data governance and stewardship products and services for large enterprises to lead metadata management, data lineage, data quality monitoring and improvement, data access management, master data management and reference data management. 

  

Does the local comprehensive plan include goals, objectives, and policies that support access management?

Verify that your personnel directs the Identity and Access Management organization to include data to day operations, governance, and strategies. 

  

How do you access the information?

Be confident that your design is looking at data across Network Security, network traffic analysis, Network security scanning (Wired, Wireless, cloud), Endpoint (anti-malware), Application Security (micro firewalls, WAF, Data firewalls), User Behavior Analytics, Device behavior analytics, access management. 

  

How are business lines involved in validating security metrics?

Be certain that your workforce is involved in data security, compliance, identity and access management. 

  

What costs are associated with preparing and sharing the data?

Ensure your design is involved in software development life cycle (SDLC) methodologies specific to requirements analysis, business processes analysis and modeling, preparing business design specifications, and logical data modeling is under management. 

  

How can zero trust improve your identity and access management practices when moving to a hybrid cloud model?

Be certain that your workforce is involved in concepts and practices as threat modeling, data tokenization, access management. 

  

Are logged in users automatically logged off after a specified amount of time?

Perform account and access management for multiple servers, specified applications, and databases. 

  

What are the most effective proven and promising IAM technologies?

Ensure you have involvement in integrating business processes across applications that share common data elements using scalable and proven design patterns and techniques. 

  

NETWORK:

  

What capability is provided for PaaS customers to specify firewall rules, load balancer policy, name service entries, etc.?

Develop experience monitoring Network Access Control services to ensure availability and integration with other technical controls, services and components, such as firewalls, Wireless Network, LAN, Identity Management Systems, etc. 

  

Do you have a formal method for identifying security risks associated with new business ventures?

Confirm that your team is involved in leading product selection initiatives in areas that including A and O, AI, analytics, secure DevOps, identify and access management and network access control. 

  

Is there support for recording/ packaging patches or upgrades to operating systems and or applications?

Oversee that your staff is responsible for partnering with key (internal) customers, business units and IT team members to plan, design, implement and support network capabilities to address network service requirements. 

  

What operating systems, mobile devices, and endpoint agents are able to work within your model?

Ensure you are responsible for installing, upgrading and maintaining ADC (Application Delivery Controllers), network security appliances and security policies in network devices and operating systems. 

  

Which systems can communicate to physical and virtual resources?

Communicate network security related task status and issues to non technical staff members and managers. 

  

How can organizations deal with identity and access management for a geographically dispersed workforce using myriad different devices?

Verify that your company requires and schedules independent verification and validation testing of your organization networks and sensitive programs using both internal team resources and engagements with independent consultants. 

  

Does the cloud provider ensure that metadata remains linked to records during data migration?

Design and implement standard office network equipment, working with internal teams to ensure standards are met and provide a resilient and scalable networking solution. 

  

How often does your organization test the contingency plan?

Provide network engineering knowledge and skills to support everyday network operations, integration/installation and test and evaluation activities. 

  

Who is responsible for analyzing vulnerability scan reports and security control assessment results?

Ensure your group is responsible for operation and maintenance of WAN, LAN, wireless, firewall, load balancer and other network related equipment and services. 

  

What authentication stores are involved in providing privileged access?

Interface so that your personnel is involved in network security, including firewall, IDS/IPS, VPN, and vulnerability remediation. 

  

RISK:

  

Which mobility strategies relates to your organization?

Develop experience working with Data Loss Prevention (DLP), insider threat detection and response, Cloud Access System Brokers (CASB), SIEM solutions, and User Behavior Analytics (UBA) to address risk as it relates to Insider Threat, sensitive data exfiltration, identity access management, and/or fraud. 

  

How do you audit User Access Management?

Be certain that your design includes cybersecurity threat services, access management services and technology risk assessments. 

  

Is the process for identifying and managing risks at an enterprise level connected to information security effectively?

Make headway so that your company is involved in understanding and assessing business processes, analyzing and assessing business process controls, identifying risks and linking business risks to the relevant IT application controls and audit procedures. 

  

Which security risk concerns you the most?

Partner with business heads across your organization to raise awareness of cyber risks and regulatory compliance concerns. 

  

How are reset passwords communicated to the user?

Evaluate complex business and technical requirements, and communicate inherent risks and solutions to technical and non technical business owners. 

  

What does the authoring system cost?

Review, identify and manage requirements for moderate to complex solutions and do a cost value, feasibility and risk analysis. 

  

Is identity and access management defining the new security perimeter?

Collaborate with IT and business stakeholders to understand risks to critical infrastructure by defining potential business impacts. 

  

Who is responsible for assessing, and monitoring flaw remediation security controls?

Be certain that your group is involved in assessing the third party vendor risk of a proposed solution, escalating appropriately and driving to closure.

  

Which applications will be included?

Identify gaps, assess risks, and develop and manage remediation action plans through the whole M and A and Integration process that include determinations of highest risk. 

  

Does your organization identify all software programs that are authorized to execute on the system?

Collaborate with business and technical partners to identify and scope the opportunities, quantify costs, outline potential value and ROI, identify risks, benefits and constraints. 

  

DEVELOPMENT:

  

Is the application of protective monitoring legal in a transparent approach?

Be sure your team collaborates with development leads to ensure cloud native workloads are deployed according to IT best practices for security, governance, identity and access management, and monitoring. 

  

What is your identity and access management solution, and what are its security vulnerabilities?

Ensure you have understanding and involvement with key security concepts such as the SIEM logging and alerting; detection strategies; Identity and Access Governance, AWS, laptop and server hardening; security tool development; forensics and malware analysis. 

  

How do other organizations ensure accountability of shared privileged accounts to meet compliance and security requirements without impacting administrator productivity?

Be confident that your organization analyzes organizational needs for application development and interfaces with (internal) clients to ensure systems are developed that meet the business requirements. 

  

Do you need to refresh your data more than once a day?

Be confident that your workforce is involved in participate in defining best practices around report development, testing, access management, and report refresh scheduling. 

  

How does your work flow support your business processes?

Partner with Leaders and Account Team members to support innovation, growth, and business development activities. 

  

What is the expected effort to update integrations on each minor and major upgrade of the software?

Partner with applications development teams, HR IT, and other essential teams to support and improve IdM environments, applications, integrations, and business processes. 

  

Which security leadership roles does your organization have?

Secure that your organization is using applications and equipment knowledge to lead front line business development activities. 

  

How do you collaborate across areas to help implement a solution?

Collaborate with design team members to ensure user centered design is always top of mind in a bustling iterative development environment. 

  

How do you transition to the new model without degrading live service and project delivery?

Be certain that your company is collecting and analyzing the projects business requirements and transferring the same knowledge to development teams. 

  

How does IAM evolve beyond gate keeping and risk management into an enabler for business growth?

Make sure your workforce leads the identification, design and implementation of automated solutions to enable development needs. 

  

PROJECT:

  

How do you handle ever changing risk?

Participate in projects and initiatives working with IAM team members, architectural, development and engineering teams, service owners, and business stakeholders to provide enterprise IAM solutions that are scalable and adaptable with the ever-changing business needs and industry demands. 

  

How can back end workloads be protected?

Plan identity and access management projects and develop work programs, timelines, and other planning documents. 

  

What are the key problems in delivering access to end-users?

Make sure your workforce partners with project management for delivering (internal) customer projects related to IoT/M2M/B2B solution. 

  

Are any changes to your organizations access management program planned or currently being implemented?

Develop experience using organizational change management models for project change management. 

  

Do you do trend monitoring on client applications?

Guarantee your design is responsible for effectively communicating modeling concepts and progress tracking with IT specializations, project teams, business and IT leaders. 

  

How many accounts need privileges over the asset to complete each task and for how long?

Be certain that your process is involved in complete project life cycle activities on development and maintenance projects. 

  

What security testing occurs for changes to systems?

Ensure your group ensures effective change management occurs throughout the course of the project. 

  

Is there an engaged, cross functional IAM team representing all the key technologies and business owners?

Represent IAM organization on large scale technology projects implemented outside IAM, regulatory reviews and internal and external audits. 

  

What is the IAM vendors commitment to developing and adopting emerging standards?

Develop experience developing implementation strategies, and detailed implementation plans for a large and complex information technology project. 

  

What will you be focusing on over the next years?

Guarantee your workforce provides project leadership for network design and installation projects using standard technologies.