Which came first, an identity or an account? Much like the chicken and egg paradox, security professionals could argue that identities and accounts have a symbiotic relationship and that you cannot have one without the other. During normal information technology operations, teams follow a workflow to instantiate either one first, and many times, they may not even be aware that, if the two are created out of order, they can participate in this paradox.

For example, when we consider the onboarding of a new employee, some organizations will create an identity in an identity access management (IAM) solution, while others may dive straight into active directory (AD) and create an account.

Read more at – Understanding The Identity Paradox