The term of “claims-based identity” and the idea overall of using the term “claim” in Identity and Access Management (IAM) has been introduced by Microsoft some two years ago but the concepts can be used in any environments and technologies can (and sometimes are) provided by other vendors as well.
A claim is a piece of information about a user provided by an identity provider which can be challenged by the relying party which receives that claim. Claims can represent pretty much anything about a user. The name, the age, the role within in a corporation, the purchase limit of that user in a specific business context or whatever else. There are as many options as use cases. Based on that concept, identities and identity-related information (including important elements of business policies) can be separated from application code.
Given that, the concept of claims is a core element of any approach towards an application security infrastructure (ASI) and, in general, the externalization of identity, access control and overall security from application code.
We strongly recommend to add the concept of claims as a standard element to any concept in the area of application security infrastructures, IAM, GRC, and especially application architecture. Regardless of the vendor who provides the technical elements, the approach of separating identities from applications appears to be valid and to be a significant break-through for application security.
