According to Statista, the market for identity and access management is expected to grow to 7.1 billion dollars by the year 2018. This is up from 4.5 billion dollars in 2012; and much of this growth can be attributed to the fact that so many organizations are looking to upgrade their identity management software to better meet the security and workflow needs their company faces.

Unfortunately, there is no odometer on your current identity management solution that tells you it is time for an upgrade. Instead, knowing when you need to look at making a change can be determined by these four key factors.

Intruders Can’t Drive You Nuts If You Don’t Give Them the Keys!

*Disclaimer: This article originally appeared in the EDUCAUSE, The Inside Line, blog series. 

In higher education as in corporate America, we're witnessing a shift in employment strategies toward increased hiring of contingent workers—employees, either full-time or part-time, hired for one year or less, with a specific end date. A January 2014 report from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce called "The Just-In-Time Professor" states that 50% of university workers are now adjunct or nontenured faculty, a substantial increase from only 20% in 1970.

Earlier this year, James Litton, our CEO, appeared on Texas Business Radio, the syndicated radio show that features leading businesses, people, and events from the Texas business world.

From seasonal employees to specialized contract workers, employment of contingent workers has dramatically increased in recent years. With 46% of businesses adding contingent workers in 2015, this workforce has proven to be resourceful, necessary, and here to stay.  While there are clear benefits to this type of employment, there are also major security risks if the access of these employees is not properly managed.

The breaches of Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center and the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) have been hot topics in the last month. Hollywood Presbyterian because it’s so fresh in our minds and the OPM because of the fallout resulting from it, including House Oversight Committee hearings and the (forced) resignation of its CIO.

Contingent workers are here to stay. In fact, in a recent report, CareerBuilder claimed that 2015 was the Year of the Temporary Employee, with 46% of businesses adding temporary workers, up from 42% in 2014. That number is expected to rise even more this year in what seems to be a continuous upward trend.

I stand in front of more than 70 IT security professionals giving a presentation on security gaps associated with managing the access of users who are not traditional employees. As is the norm, I pepper the presentation with some light attempts at humor to keep people engaged. Each quirky joke I share elicits the desired chuckle or murmur of amusement from the crowd.

The full-time salaried position is no longer the dominant worker classification that it was in the 1990s or even 2000s. More and more companies, focused on cutting costs, are employing contingent workers to avoid paying taxes and healthcare benefits on those workers. And more and more workers, led by millennials, are seeking contingent-based employment, desiring the flexibility and freedom that comes with those positions. This new economy we live in, defined by technology, sharing and innovation, is changing how we work.

You could say 2015 was a house of horrors when it came to security breaches -- from high profile corporate hacks, stolen identities of 4 million federal employees, to a database breach exposing the names, genders, and birthdays of more than 200,000 kids.