IAM Interview Questions and Answers
IAM technologies manage digital identities and access permissions effectively.
Only authorised users may access critical information and resources using IAM technology, which manages user identities and permissions securely and efficiently, furthermore, this system helps protect data assets while meeting regulatory compliance.
1. What is IAM?
Identity and Access Management, commonly called IAM, is the final line of defense to safeguard an organization and is often considered primary security.
Security in digital spaces encompasses various concepts like authentication, authorization and accounting, which all work to protect user data and keep things running smoothly.
2. What is the role of IAM in protecting systems from attacks?
IAM protects systems against attacks by authenticating, authorizing, and accounting for users, various authentication and authorisation techniques, location detection, or geolocation verify whether an alleged user matches up with who they claim they are.
By understanding the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, organizations can better protect their systems while creating a secure environment for users.
3. How does IAM work to protect against attacks?
IAM guards against attacks by authenticating users using username and password authentication, biometric verification and geographic location; once established, authorisation and accounting processes apply to grant appropriate permissions and privileges within a system.
4. What is the difference between authentication, authorisation, and accounting in IAM?
Authentication involves identifying users through various methods, including username, password authentication, biometric verification, or geolocation technology; authorisation evaluates whether an individual possesses appropriate permissions to gain entry to systems based on their identity.
Accounting records and reports user activities to ensure compliance with regulations and standards.
5. What are some standard methods of authentication used in IAM?
IAM utilises several authentication techniques, including user name, password combination, biometrics, location tracking, geolocation, intelligent cards, multifactor authentication, and SSO, to protect information assets and ensure secure operation.
By employing multiple authentication techniques, businesses can ensure that their systems remain safe for only authorised users to gain entry.
6. What are the strengths of using accounting in IAM?
Among its numerous strengths, accounting in IAM provides benefits by helping identify all forms of access, even unauthorized access and tracking and rectifying excessive or unauthorized usage of resources.
7. What is the importance of access controls and the highest-level privileged groups?
Access controls and high-privilege groups ensure that only authorised personnel gain entry to sensitive data or systems.
8. What is Zero Trust?
Zero trust can be defined as not trusting any object or individual at any moment. It requires thorough identity and access management measures for optimal security.
9. What is a key management system?
A key management system (KMS) is an encrypted zone for storing databases; most passwords in such encryption are in hashes rather than plain or directly encrypted text in this system.
10. What is Kerbs?
Kerbs is an improved form of authentication and encryption in networks.
11. Why are passwords highly compressed and encrypted?
Passwords must be highly compressed and encrypted to safeguard against being accessed over a network or physically via access points, even when hackers or technologies like Microsoft Kerbs use more secure solutions like hash values as direct password alternatives.
12. Why is it important to understand identity and access management?
Learning more about identity and access management is crucial to protecting security against identity theft; additionally, it allows us to better safeguard ourselves against possible digital security risks that threaten us and our digital universe.
13. What are digital artifacts?
Digital artefacts arise from actions or objects taken online, such as usernames, passwords, and unique identifiers for accounts, phone numbers, credit and debit card numbers, social security, tax ID numbers, and transaction ID numbers.
14. What is authentication?
Authentication refers to verifying user credentials or authentication methods to validate them as legitimate and allow access to an application, system or database.
15. What is authorisation?
Authorisation refers to granting or restricting access based on user identity and permissions; it’s an essential aspect of network security that allows network administrators and security specialists to identify individuals quickly.
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Single-factor authentication involves authenticating user credentials or authentication methods such as their username, password, PIN or OTP token to confirm them for accessing specific resources online.
17. What is multi-factor authentication?
Multi-factor authentication involves employing various factors, such as biometrics, retinas, palms, fingerprints, access cards, smartphones, signatures, speech recognition, or voice recognition, in combination to authenticate.
18. What are time constraints in authorisation control?
Time constraints in authorisation control refer to restrictions placed upon users so that only specific actions and resources may be performed at certain times. They are often implemented to limit unauthorised access or brute-force attacks on resources or accounts.
19. What is user access in authorisation control?
User Access in Authorisation Control refers to allowing authorised users access to specific systems or resources, often to prevent unauthorised entry or ensure users only gain access to necessary resources. It may be implemented to limit unauthorised entry or provide access to all the resources necessary.
20. How many logs are generated during system operations in authorisation control?
Authorisation control generates logs as data is generated during system operations, often to track user activity or detect suspicious behaviour; this data can then be analysed later for trends.
21. What are the risks associated with single-factor authentication?
Single-factor authentication carries risks, such as passwords being easily cracked or seen over one’s shoulder by anyone and multiple users using one password simultaneously.
22. What are the benefits of multi-factor authentication?
Multi-factor authentication offers numerous advantages over single-factor authentication systems, including increased security, lower costs, and better usability; breaking it requires verifying multiple factors simultaneously rather than sufficient authentication code.
23. What is identity management in multi-factor authentication?
Identity management manages unique identifiers for every network object, user, and resource within an MFA network environment. It ensures users can only gain access to those they’re allowed to.
24. How can password exposure be mitigated in multi-factor authentication?
To minimise password exposure in multi-factor authentication, complex passwords containing numbers, special characters, alphabets, lowercase letters and extended characters should be chosen to safeguard password safety.
25. What is the critical object or service in multi-factor authentication?
Authenticator management is at the core of multi-factor authentication. It creates tokens or sessions for individual users while overseeing authentication processes and procedures.
26. How can organisations ensure security and maintain a secure network environment with multi-factor authentication?
Multi-factor authentication, organisations can enhance security and maintain a safer network environment by employing strong passwords, administering identities securely, and using effective authentication mechanisms.
It is also crucial that organisations regularly review and adapt their authentication processes as part of their security requirements.
27. What is the segregation of duties, and why is it essential in authorisation?
Segregation of duties refers to the allocation of privileges among users for specific organisational tasks or activities; for instance, developers usually have access to tools and files not accessible by testers while sharing access to an environment and network with testers.
28. What is the principle of least privilege, and how is it applied in authorisation?
The principle of least privilege allows users to access only what is relevant to their tasks. It fulfils its corresponding release pledge principle – providing users limited access so they can complete daily tasks successfully.
One way to mitigate the risk of users accessing or misusing sensitive data without authorisation is to ensure they have the privileges necessary to perform their job functions effectively.
29. What is a notification of system usage in a corporate environment?
Notifying users about system usage is vitally essential in corporate environments where users must enter their login IDs and passwords before accessing resources or materials that belong exclusively to specific organisations; this message confirms this fact while also noting the property belongs solely for business use.
30. What are the four types of access control?
There are physical, logical, and role-based access controls. Physical access controls provide rights or limitations within a computer environment, while rational access controls provide restrictions outside it in physical space.
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31. What is mandatory access control?
Mandatory access control is a broad concept that applies to infrastructures and enterprises like military bases or government agencies, for which white-collar protection must be ensured through operating system access controls or application-specific access control policies.
32. What is discretionary access control?
Discretionary access control refers to access controls where an individual decides who gains entry by changing attributes or access controls of objects they own; such actions might include adding or removing users based on organisational roles or groups.
33. What is role-based access control?
Role-based access control is one of the most frequently employed access controls within any organisation, hierarchies and desegregation levels are established to assign specific roles and privileges to computer objects within that hierarchy.
34. What is provisioning?
Provisioning ensures that an organisation’s security considerations are considered before providing access, making it simpler and faster for IT teams to segregate processes more effectively and streamline workflow.
35. How is access termination necessary?
Access termination is another critical component of the process; when employees depart the organisation, an exit survey should be performed to ascertain why they must leave and whether their access privileges were provided accordingly, along with whether any IT assets had been collected back, damaged, or altered in any way.
36. What happens to a user account when it is deleted?
Since deactivating instead of deleting is always the best practice, all employee events or transactions about that employee remain visible through this account.
37. How long should logs be kept for investigation purposes?
Most enterprises store logs in hard buckets for up to six months for investigation; at a minimum, one year must pass before retrieving logs that may contain clues as to leakage or severity issues.
38. What is the life cycle of IDAM?
IDAM’s lifecycle comprises several steps, from provisioning accounts through authentication and authorisation processes to monitoring resource use; users can subsequently reset passwords, request permissions, or raise requests for role changes or assignment policies through self-service options.
39. What are the benefits of IDAM?
IDAM’s benefits include minimising data breaches, safeguarding resources from being misappropriated by mistake and giving appropriate users access to objects at proper times and with authenticated login.
It can significantly reduce data breach risks depending on its implementation method, single sign-on or multifactor established methods.
40. What is the federation concept in IDAM?
IDAM provides its customers access to third-party resources or authenticators, such as cloud accounts or object authentication, to authenticate themselves and gain entry to cloud resources. Customers may use these authentication mechanisms or objects, such as cloud aid account authentication, to gain entry when needed.
41. What are the challenges faced by businesses when using IDAM technology?
Enterprises face challenges in communicating between users, vendors, customers, third parties and customers using this form of tech and authorisation and authentication across various platforms.
42. What is the zero-trust information security model, and how does it differ from the traditional castle-based approach?
Zero-trust information security models emphasise the principle of least-minor proliferation to secure sensitive applications and data. Going beyond traditional castle approaches, this approach considers everything within an enterprise environment potentially vulnerable until proof of identity or authenticity can be provided.
43. What is the firewall concept, and how does it process rules?
A firewall concept refers to network security systems that monitor and regulate all network traffic based on previously set security rules; from top-to-bottom, they process them sequentially until one final rule prohibits or coordinates all connections.
44. What is the trust model?
The trust model is an authentication method in which multiple accounts may access each other with just one username or password combination; users may log onto Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram using Google accounts, allowing access or login to all those platforms simultaneously.
45. What is spamming?
Spamming refers to sending unsolicited emails or messages in bulk or repeatedly to one user with similar content or messages, either directly or through third parties.
46. What is spyware?
Spyware is software created specifically to gather and transmit personal data from computer users; such information includes passwords, logins, keystrokes and any other type of sensitive data that might reside therein.
47. What is dumpster diving?
Dumpster diving involves gathering personal information using tools like Google, multi-go networks and paid software from the dark market. Such search techniques may produce detailed graphs about individuals’ activities and limited info such as target individuals’ email addresses or phone numbers.
48. What is Netcraft?
Netcraft is an interactive browser toolbar and add-on that alerts users when visiting certain websites or pages that could contain malicious or inappropriate material, while the program supports several browsers, some features might be turned off during installation.
By answering this multiple-choice quiz take this multiple-choice test to assess how well you know the material.
49. Which of the following is not a primary security?
IAM
Firewalls
Intrusion detection
Intrusion prevention
50. Which of the following ensures the user is who they claim to be?
Authentication
Authorisation
Accounting
Triple-A
51. What is the next step after combining a username, password, and multi-factor authentication?
Biometrics
Authorisation
Accounting
Identity and access management
52. Which of the following is a crucial aspect of identity and access management?
Physical security
Identity theft prevention
Password management
Authentication and authorisation
53. What are some factors used in the authentication and authorization process?
Biometrics
Access cards
Smartphones
Signatures
54. What is single-factor authentication?
A method that uses multiple factors and authenticators to grant access to a network.
Inexpensive, simple to enable, and easy to use.
Difficult to break due to the multiple factors included.
It requires additional configuration and is easy to implement.
Conclusion
Identity and Access Management technology is central to today’s cybersecurity, authenticating, authorising and overseeing users across systems and applications.
Access control ensures the security, integrity, and availability of resources, and it allows enterprises to manage user identities, enforce security regulations, monitor user activity to detect security breaches, and more.
Identity Access Management technology protects an organisation’s data and assets by managing identities efficiently.
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Srujana
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