As organizations move more workloads to the cloud, identity has become the new security perimeter. Modern identity and access management (IAM) systems centralize user identities, enforce least privilege, and log every access attempt across on‑premises systems, SaaS applications, and cloud platforms. Role‑based and attribute‑based access control policies ensure that users and services only reach the resources they need. Multi‑factor authentication and adaptive risk‑based policies further reduce the risk of account compromise. Privileged access management (PAM) tools control and audit access for administrators and third‑party vendors, while identity federation allows seamless single sign‑on across hybrid environments. With threats like credential stuffing and lateral movement on the rise, robust IAM is now a cornerstone of cloud security and compliance with regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA.