  Identity management refers to the technology and policies for the
identification, authentication, and authorization of users in computer
networks. Identity management is therefore fundamental to today's IT ecosystem.
At the same time, identity management systems, where digital identities are
managed, pose an attractive target for attacks. With the heterogeneity of
identity management systems, every type (i.e., models, protocols,
implementations) has different requirements, typical problems, and hence attack
vectors. In order to provide a systematic and categorized overview, the
framework Taxonomy for Identity Management Attacks (TaxIdMA) for attacks
related to identities is proposed. The purpose of this framework is to classify
existing attacks associated with system identities, identity management
systems, and end-user identities as well as the background using an extensible
structure from a scientific perspective. The taxonomy is then evaluated with
eight real-world attacks resp. vulnerabilities. This analysis shows the
capability of the proposed taxonomy framework TaxIdMA in describing and
categorizing these attacks.
