At the Forefront of identity management

Filed in archive Security on March 3, 2010

Identity management may not be broadly thought of outside of the information security field, but the problems it seeks to address are an ever-increasing drag on networked commerce. The simple problem of establishing one is who one says one is has always been with us in the Internet age, of course; solutions such as electronic signatures and public key encryption have existed for decades. But these solutions have been inelegant and impenetrable and too complex to use on a large scale without excessive training and support.

Microsoft unveiled their Forefront Identity Manager 2010 package yesterday at the RSA 2010 security conference and established their bonafides in tackling the identity management issue ahead of the field. Building on the existing Identity Lifecycle Management product (the name must have slipped out before Marketing got hold of it; who but a bunch of geeks would come up with something like that?), Forefront provides an extensible system for identity management built around Active Directory. As with many Microsoft products, the integration with existing Microsoft platforms creates a powerful impetus for organizations already running them to stick with the brand.

Even without that motivation, however, Forefront looks to capitalize on another Microsoft strong suit, which is making previously complicated and disparate methods for achieving some technical end all shiny, pretty, and easy enough for an MCSE to use. That combination has blown the doors off competitors in the past, and to the extent that security concerns continue to plague over-the-wire interactions, it stands to do so today as well.