IDaaS refers to cloud-hosted services for verifying that users are who they claim to be.
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Identity-as-a-service, or IDaaS, refers to a wide variety of cloud-hosted services for identity and access management (IAM). Essentially, IDaaS is a category of technological functions that have to do with user identity and are hosted in the cloud. IDaaS providers help ensure that users are who they claim to be, ultimately blocking cyber criminals and other unauthorized users from accessing sensitive data.
The cloud is a broad collection of servers and their supporting infrastructure that are accessed over the Internet. A cloud service is a product or application that runs on servers hosted in the cloud instead of running on an organization's local infrastructure. Cloud services use a subscription model: instead of paying once for a piece of software, cloud customers pay a monthly fee and can increase their level of service on demand.
Most cloud services are described by appending "as-a-service" to the name of their function. For example:
Identity-as-a-Service, or IDaaS, is a type of SaaS.
IDaaS providers can offer a number of user authentication services, such as:
Multi-factor authentication (MFA): MFA is the use of multiple authentication factors to verify a user's identity. One example would be requiring users to insert a USB device into their laptop, in addition to entering their password. MFA is more secure than username and password combinations alone. Cloud MFA providers enable organizations to quickly implement MFA. (See also: What is two-factor authentication?)
Single sign-on (SSO): SSO allows users to sign in once to a single portal in order to access all of their SaaS applications, and it also provides a centralized place for companies to manage the applications each user has access to. Most SSO services are cloud-hosted and allow users to access their SSO login pages through a web browser.
Identity management: An identity provider (IdP) stores and manages user identities. An IdP may check user identities via username-password combinations and other factors, or it may simply provide a list of user identities that another service provider checks. Cloud-hosted IdPs fit under the IDaaS umbrella.
Learn about Cloudflare Zero Trust, which enables companies to manage employee access to any internal resource without a VPN, or read more about access control in the Cloudflare Learning Center.