Which concept describes the management of Identities throughout the identity management lifecycle?

• A. Privileged Accounts
• B. Stateful
• C. Identity and Access Management (IAM)
• D. Provisioning Identities

Answer: (C)

Managing identities across their entire lifecycle is the function of Identity and Access Management (IAM). IAM covers the full spectrum: creating identities, provisioning and updating access as roles change, enforcing authentication and authorization policies, monitoring and auditing who has access to what, and deprovisioning when someone leaves or a credential must be revoked. It ties together user attributes, credentials, access controls, and governance to ensure the right people have the right access at the right times.

This goes beyond simply creating accounts. It encompasses onboarding, role changes, temporary or elevated access, ongoing access governance, and offboarding. While provisioning identities is a part of IAM, the broader concept includes ongoing lifecycle management and policy enforcement. Privileged Accounts focus on accounts with elevated rights and require extra controls, but they’re a specialized area within IAM. Stateful is not related to identity management.