What Is the Shared Responsibility Model in IAM?

How the Shared Responsibility Model Connects Identity Access Management, Business Continuity, and Disaster Recovery

Across industries, operations increasingly rely on cloud services, which is why understanding the nuances of cloud security has never been more vital to maintaining business continuity. At the heart of this understanding lies the Shared Responsibility Model (SRM), a fundamental framework that delineates security obligations between cloud service providers and their customers.

The SRM is a security framework that clearly defines and distributes responsibilities between cloud service providers and their customers. In essence, it's a collaborative approach to ensuring comprehensive cloud security. The cloud provider typically manages the security of the cloud infrastructure itself, while customers are responsible for securing their data, applications, and access within the cloud environment.

The Shared Responsibility Model intersects with three critical areas of cloud security and operations: Identity Access Management (IAM), business continuity, and Disaster Recovery (DR). The division of responsibilities in these areas substantially affects an organization's approach to security, resilience, and risk management.

Who's in Charge? Understanding Security Responsibilities

The SRM divides security duties between Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and their customers. Even more broadly, it splits security responsibilities into two main categories:

1. Security of the cloud is managed by the CSP:

Physical Security of Data Centers

Hardware and Network Infrastructure

Virtualization Layer

Host Operating Systems

Managed Database Services

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2. Security in the cloud is managed by the customer:

Data Classification and Accountability

Identity and Access Management

Application-level Controls

Network and Firewall Configurations

Client-side Data Encryption

In short, the CSP guards the cloud itself and the customer ensures that whatever they upload to it is secure. Under that framework, all aspects of cloud security are addressed while allowing each party to focus on their areas of control. However, the specific allocation of responsibilities can vary depending on the cloud service model:

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): CSP manages physical facilities, networking, and servers, and the customer is responsible for operating systems, storage, and deployed applications

Platform as a Service (PaaS): CSP manages IaaS responsibilities plus operating systems, and the customer is responsible for deployed applications and, in some cases, hosting environment configurations.

Software as a Service (SaaS): CSP manages nearly everything, including the application itself, and the customer is primarily responsible for data and access management.

As firms move from IaaS to SaaS, more responsibilities shift to the CSP. However, regardless of the model, the customer always retains responsibility for their data, end-point devices, accounts, and access management.

IAM in the Shared Responsibility Model

Identity Access Management is powered by policies and technologies that limit system and network access exclusively to authorized individuals and only for specific resources at appropriate times and for legitimate reasons.

Under the SRM, customers bear significant responsibility for IAM implementation and management. This includes data security tasks such as classifying sensitive information and implementing encryption measures, as well as device management to secure endpoints accessing cloud resources. Additionally, customers are responsible for identity management, which involves creating and managing user accounts, implementing role-based access control, and integrating cloud IAM with existing identity providers.

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To protect IAM resilience and uphold their duties in the SRM, organizations should adopt several digital security best practices:

Implement strong authentication methods, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) to prevent unauthorized access

Adhere to the principle of least privilege by granting users only the minimum necessary permissions (which reduces the risk of insider threats and accidental data breaches)

Conduct regular audits and continuous monitoring of user activity to detect and respond to suspicious behavior promptly

Automated IAM solutions also significantly enhance security and efficiency by streamlining account provisioning and deprovisioning processes, integrating with cloud services, and leveraging AI and machine learning for anomaly detection. These tools help organizations manage complex IAM environments while reducing the risk of human error.

Business Continuity in the Cloud

Business disruptions are costly financially and reputationally. Atlassian estimates that downtime costs small businesses $427 a minute and medium and large businesses around $9,000 a minute. That’s why it’s essential to prepare for the loss and restoration of vital functions. Doing so minimizes data loss and the impact on business operations.

Under the Shared Responsibility Model, both CSPs and customers have separate roles in ensuring business continuity. Cloud providers are responsible for:

Infrastructure Resilience

Data Center Failover Capabilities

Network Stability

Basic Disaster Recovery Services

Uptime Guarantees in Service Level Agreements (SLA)

Customers, on the other hand, are responsible for:

Developing Comprehensive Continuity Plans

Configuring High-availability Systems

Implementing Data Backup and Recovery Backup and Recovery Strategies

Ensuring Application-level Resilience

Training Staff on Continuity Procedures

To align business continuity plans with the Shared Responsibility Model, organizations should implement several strategies, including:

Identifying Critical Business Functions

Implementing Multi-region or Multi-cloud Strategies

Utilizing Cloud-native Tools for Automated Failover and Load Balancing

Robust Data Backup Strategies

Failover strategy for worst-case-scenario disasters

Regular testing or tabletop exercises of the business continuity plan

Business continuity in the cloud is an ongoing process that requires regular review and updates as cloud services evolve and business needs change.

The Customer's Role in Cloud-Based Disaster Recovery

Disaster Recovery planning is key in maintaining business continuity, and cloud-based DR is often faster, cheaper, and more flexible than traditional on-premises recovery solutions. Cloud DR also offers a very wide range of customizable features like geographic redundancy of data centers, data replication across regions, and failover and load balancing tools, as well as SLAs for Recovery Time Objectives (RTO). All those options give customers the freedom to build a DR strategy tailored to their specific operation.

Yet, the customers still have key responsibilities in DR planning and implementation, such as selecting and configuring appropriate CSP services and regularly testing and updating plans. To effectively integrate DR with the Shared Responsibility Model, customers should:

Clearly Define Recovery Objectives

Account for Various Disaster Types (e.g. accidental and intentional, insider and outsider)

Maintain Clear Documentation

Utilize Cloud-native Tools for Monitoring and Response

This approach ensures that organizations can leverage the cloud provider's robust infrastructure while fulfilling their crucial role in managing effective disaster recovery processes.

The Pillars of Cloud Protection: IAM and Strategic Partnerships

Organizations should thoroughly review and understand their cloud provider's SLAs to effectively implement the SRM. This involves scrutinizing uptime guarantees, support response times, and security commitments, while clearly delineating responsibilities between provider and customer. Data security should take priority, with robust classification systems, encryption, data loss prevention strategies, regular backups, and vigilant monitoring of access patterns.

Organizations should also consider identifying a trusted cybersecurity partner with capabilities they lack. This process involves assessing internal skills, researching potential partners with relevant experience, and ensuring they understand the SRM.

MightyID Bridges the Gap in Security Responsibilities

MightyID’s innovative IAM resilience platform helps businesses manage their responsibilities within the SRM thanks to comprehensive IAM support across the major Identity Providers (IdP).

With smart features like continuous backups, precision-targeted restores, and automated processes, MightyID significantly enhances an organization's ability to maintain robust security, enforce regulatory compliance, swiftly recover from potential IAM system failures, and effectively manage their responsibilities within the SRM, ensuring that the critical aspects of identity and access management are handled with efficiency and precision.

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Get in touch with MightyID to learn more about protecting your critical IAMcloud-connected systems from today’s most damaging threats.