A survey of trust issues constraining the growth of Identity Management-as-a-Service(IdMaaS)

Identity management-as-a-service (IdMaaS) is a cloud computing service where the identity management function is moved to the cloud, streamlining the responsibilities of the computing or IT departments of organisations. IdMaaS´s attractiveness leans on reduced cost of ownership, least to no capital investment, scalability, self-service, location independence and rapid deployment, however, its growth has been impeded by issues most of which are related to security, privacy and trust. Most organisations view identities as passports to key computing resources (hardware, software and data) as such they view identity management as a core IT function which must remain within the perimeter of sphere of control. This paper primarily aims to discuss IdMaaS and highlight the major trust issues in current existing cloud computing environments affecting the growth of IdMaaS by describing IdMaaS and surveying the trust issues that pose threats to its growth. Highlighting the trust issues hampering the growth of IdMaaS will lay a foundation for subsequent research efforts directed at addressing trust issues and therefore enhancing the growth of IdMaaS. Consequently the growth of IdMaaS will open up a new entrepreneurial avenue for service providers, at the same time enabling IdMaaS consumers to realise the benefits which come along with cloud computing. In future, we will analyse and evaluate the extent of impact posed by each trust issue to IdMaaS.