From Pain Points to Profit: Securing Digital Business with CIAM

Just like a physical storefront, your online presence can be the very first interaction a customer has with your brand. Think about your own customer journeys: signing up for a new service, logging into an e-commerce site, or accessing a partner portal. These moments are your introduction to a new business, and just like in person, a smooth, secure, and welcoming first impression can make all the difference. Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) secures your customer journey and sets the tone for their entire experience with your business.

To better understand this critical component of secure, scalable business, we sat down with Anuj Marya, Director at KeyData Cyber, to learn more about CIAM and how it is used to create positive customer interactions.

CIAM vs Traditional IAM

With over 16 years of IAM experience, Anuj Marya has deep expertise in CIAM, making him the perfect person to talk to about this powerful security solution. 

So what is CIAM and how does it differ from traditional IAM? Anuj explained that unlike IAM, CIAM is a platform "used primarily by external users (e.g., customers, partners) to access public-facing applications and services." 

That’s an important distinction. With CIAM, we're talking about identity management designed specifically for the vast and varied audience that interacts with your business online. Every day, millions of customers log into e-commerce sites, partners access shared portals, and users engage with mobile apps. The sheer scale of potential online users demands a fundamentally different approach to security.

The goal and focus of a CIAM platform also differs from traditional IAM (Identity and Access Management). While traditional IAM is about controlling access for employees and contractors within the confines of an organization's network, CIAM has a much broader mission tied directly to your business's success.

CIAM’s main purpose is to drive business growth and increase customer engagement. This means the platform needs to be intuitive, welcoming, and seamlessly integrated into the customer journey. 

This difference in purpose leads to distinct priorities:

• User Experience (UX) is a top concern for CIAM: As Anuj emphasized, "User experience is the highest priority, so it is critical to ensure that users can seamlessly interface with CIAM through various touchpoints (e.g., registration, login, self-service). Any friction or frustration in these journeys would deter them from moving forward." If a customer has a clunky sign-up process or a frustrating login experience, they're likely to abandon their interaction and potentially never return.
• Fraud Prevention is a critical CIAM-specific security concern: Your business’s online presence can be vulnerable to fraud because it’s public-facing. Anuj explained, "fraud prevention is very important for CIAM due to the increased risk of account takeover threats and bot attacks." Protecting customer accounts from malicious actors is important to maintain trust and prevent financial losses for both the customer and the business.
• Data and Compliance for CIAM revolves around customer trust and insights: CIAM is essential for ensuring compliance with local and federal privacy regulations, Anuj shared. "From a compliance perspective, protecting PII data and ensuring high level of consent management is available is required to align with regulatory standards." Beyond just compliance, "data analytics and seamless integration with CRM systems is just as important as it helps build a 360-degree view of the user profile and gives more insight in creating tailored experiences for customers." That’s why CIAM is a strategic asset for understanding and serving your customers better.

How the Status Quo Hurts Your Business

So, what happens when organizations try to manage customer identities without a dedicated CIAM solution? Often, they face a frustrating uphill battle. As Anuj pointed out, "Without a centralized CIAM solution, organizations are consistently struggling to manage a platform that can provide streamlined experiences and one that can scale to meet industry best practices." Instead of a seamlessly integrated system, businesses often end up with a fragmented, siloed security architecture, leading to a host of significant challenges:

• Data Fragmentation: For many organizations, customer data is scattered across various systems, like your marketing database, your support portal, your e-commerce platform. Fragmented data stored in multiple data repositories with each containing slivers of user data, duplicated accounts, and potentially inaccurate information makes it nearly impossible to get a complete view of user behavior so you can personalize experiences or detect and resolve support issues efficiently.
• Weak Security: Relying on outdated or inconsistent security measures for customer accounts is a recipe for disaster. Without a dedicated CIAM, businesses are often unable to offer modern security protocols like SAML and OIDC, rely on weak authentication methods (username/password, security questions), and lack real-time threat detection. Without strong authentication, you leave customer accounts vulnerable to breaches, harming both your customers and your brand reputation.
• Compliance Challenges: Privacy regulations like GDPR and PIPEDA apply to any business handling personal data, regardless of size or industry. Without a centralized CIAM, organizations can struggle to align with privacy regulations, audit requirements, and user consent management, exposing them to hefty fines and legal complications.
• Inferior User Experience: We’ve all experienced inferior user experiences, like those with tedious registration processes, multiple logins, and confusing account recovery processes. Poor user experience, whether its struggling to remember which password works for which part of a company's website, or filling out endless forms just to create an account, can drive customers away, directly impacting your bottom line.

Trying to "make do" without a proper CIAM is inefficient and actively hinders your ability to attract, retain, and grow your customer base. To make matters worse, outdated tools are a major source of technical debt. Every manual process and workaround will inevitably increase your technical debt and your operational costs. This debt grows and grows, becoming an obstacle to growth. 

Setting the Stage for Success with CIAM

Unlike traditional IAM, which primarily focuses on internal perimeter defense and governing access for employees, CIAM is purpose-built to cultivate business growth and digital agility. It ensures every customer interaction is not only seamless but inherently secure. From fostering user engagement and mitigating account takeover fraud to ensuring granular regulatory adherence, CIAM plays an indispensable, cross-functional role in how modern enterprises connect with their external users.

Your choice of a CIAM solution becomes paramount. Anuj has the final word here. "The CIAM market has grown significantly over the past 5 years and while most of the products offer similar capabilities, they also offer differentiating features that set them apart. When evaluating vendors, CISOs and CTOs must prioritize solutions that deliver on both security and user experience.”

Security Features

Your CIAM must offer “a wide range of security methods such as SMS/Voice/Email OTP, Authenticator apps, biometrics, and push notifications," alongside forward-looking capabilities like "passwordless authentication using FIDO2/Webauthn passkeys [and] magic links." 

Your CIAM must also provide "Flexible adaptive MFA to do an additional step up challenge for the user when a new device, new IP, or uncommon behavior patterns are being detected," even for sensitive transactions. Furthermore, strong CIAM demands "alignment with data residency requirements, audit reporting and privacy regulations" and robust "support for fraud prevention through mechanisms such as bot detection, breached password detection, identity verification, and seamless integration with other fraud systems."

User Experience Features

Equally important from a user experience (UX) perspective, Anuj adds, the chosen solution should empower "flexible user journeys that can be tailored based on user types, applications being accessed, Adaptive MFA needs, privacy requirements, and so on." This includes facilitating "Seamless registration and login experiences by providing the ability to customize forms, branding, social login integration, [and] progressive profiling." Finally, comprehensive "self-service capabilities through a portal or API integration" and an "omnichannel experience for all devices and touchpoints" are essential for driving customer satisfaction and reducing friction.

Selecting a CIAM strategy that embodies these advanced security and user-centric capabilities will prepare you to proactively address today’s security challenges. Your investment in CIAM will transform customer friction points into opportunities for business growth.

To learn more about how KeyData Cyber helps businesses like yours provide secure, seamless, and frictionless online customer experiences, contact us today for a complimentary security assessment.