Credentials in a CIAM system help identify users through login info, passwords, public keys, MFA, etc.
User Provided Profile Data includes details users share, ranging from basic to complex attributes, gathered during registration or progressively.
Consents in a CIAM system capture user permissions for marketing or legal purposes, different from other profile data as they can be explicitly granted or revoked.
Data modeling involves the choice between normalizing data and using denormalized data, each with its own strengths and tradeoffs.
Normalized data leads to less data duplication and easier data updates, but may result in challenges with historical data and performance.
CIAM systems, along with IAM and directory systems, normalize user data to centralize customer information, providing benefits like easy querying and centralized authentication, but also introducing challenges like session handling and updating data across systems.
B2C, B2B, and B2B2E applications require different approaches to customer identity and access management (CIAM) systems.
B2C applications aim at end consumers, requiring smooth registration and authentication processes due to user choice.
B2B and B2B2E applications cater to business and employee users, with focus on organization structures, payment collection, and different authentication needs.
CIAM systems help customers authenticate, while IAM systems help employees.
CIAM systems typically have more users than employees.
Key workflows for a CIAM system include authentication, account association, self-service registration, password management, and multi-factor authentication.
WebAuthn (passkeys) is a standard for easier web authentication, replacing traditional methods like passwords.
Different authentication methods like federated logins or magic links have their own weaknesses, such as shared points of failure and trust issues with remote servers.
WebAuthn improves security using public/private key cryptography, but comes with challenges like handling private keys securely and potential account recovery issues.
CIAM federation allows users to sign in with credentials from another provider like Google or GitHub.
Account linking in federation is crucial to prevent multiple accounts for the same user.
Benefits of federation include centralized access control and a smoother sign-up process, but tradeoffs include potential data limitations and dependence on big providers.
Be cautious about who you trust, especially when it comes to user identity verification.
Understand how identity providers verify user identity when offering single sign-on for consumer scenarios.
Mitigate federation risk by carefully choosing who you trust, segmenting users and identity sources, and avoiding matching accounts on mutable attributes.
Implement email verification in CIAM systems to connect new accounts to valid email owners, reducing account takeovers and bot attacks.
When changing login identifiers in CIAM systems, re-verification is crucial to prevent unauthorized access and alert users of potential attacks.
Account recovery in CIAM systems should not be sent to unverified accounts and should implement additional security measures like session invalidation and multi-factor authentication.
Passwords are still widely used due to being supported by many applications, being cost-effective, and familiar to users.
Hashing passwords adds a crucial layer of security by making it harder for attackers to retrieve passwords in the event of a breach.
When it comes to password hashing algorithms, it's important to stay updated on recommendations, such as NIST guidelines, and to choose wisely based on current security best practices.
Multi-region architecture helps with resilience and performance by directing users to different regions during natural disasters and routing them to the closest server for better performance.
True multi-region active-active setups allow users to login and interact with the application seamlessly, regardless of their location.
CIAM systems face challenges in multi-region deployments, particularly in scaling data storage across regions, with only a few database options available.
Self-service registration is a great way to offer users additional functionality or personalized content.
When designing registration forms, consider what information you need, such as login identifiers, passwords, demographic details, and payment data.
Complexities of self-service registration include account validation, progressive data collection, account recovery, profile updates, and defense against account enumeration.