Mark is an excellent marketing professional. The organization hugely depends on him and provides him with the access he needs for marketing activities. Mark now requests for access to Salesforce, a tool typically used by sales professionals. Should the organization grant him access to a tool he may or may not really need? Ideally, no. In cyberspace, this is known as Role-Based Access Control.
What is RBAC (Role-Based Access Control)?
Essentially, Role-Based Access Control is a security measure. It is a known fact that employees are the weakest link of any organization. Their accesses must be protected from external and internal threats.
Put simply, RBAC is a process of granting the right access to the right employees and authorizing them to use the data or business information that is important or relevant to them. RBAC restricts undue access to vital business information and protects the data from both external and internal vulnerabilities.
Benefits of RBAC
Better security:
The objective of RBAC is to prevent intruders from accessing valuable data and business information. RBAC allows only legit and authorized users to log in to systems or applications. Here, the chances of unauthorized access reduce drastically, and this improves account and application security and prevents data breaches and cyberattacks to a great extent.
Unburdening the IT department:
RBAC can certainly be a breather for the IT department. Cybercrimes are only increasing in number, and every organization, irrespective of the size, is a potential target. The IT department and security professionals are always on their toes. RBAC essentially restricts unauthorized access and gives a clear idea as to “who has access to what”. This streamlines the IT process, makes monitoring of accounts and accesses easy.
As RBAC is deployed, the IT department and security professionals can dedicate their time to strengthen the organization’s cybersecurity posture in better and innovative ways.
Better adherence to compliance:
Every organization is bound to remain complaint with statuary requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, etc. RBAC aids the organization in seamless compliance. Since the processes are streamlined and there is a stringent policy on how the data should be accessed and used, the organization can show how they secure data and manage sensitive efficiently.
How do you effectively implement RBAC?
Typically, effective RBAC implementation rests on the following pillars:
Clearly defined roles:
Essentially, the objective of having RBAC in place is to ensure only the right users get access to the right applications and information relevant to their role. It is imperative to clearly define and organize roles, then create workflows and grant accesses accordingly. If the roles aren’t defined clearly, it is possible that employees may either end up with lots of accesses they don’t require or insufficient access. The organization may take a previous role, current role, and possible change of role to implement efficient RBAC.
Documentation:
It sure is a good idea to document all the policies and procedures of your organization’s RBAC. Documentation can be useful for references, clarification, and confirmation of the workflows. The document may entail the names of the employees, accesses granted to them, the procedure for change, revoking, or deleting access, the data and information to be shared with employees, penalties/consequences of non-adherence to RBAC, etc. Documentation helps the current employees as well as the new recruits in a better understanding of their roles and authorizations.
Flexibility and Adaptation:
An employee may have to take up different roles during his term at the organization. This means an alteration in his accesses as well. Each time there is a change in role, the workflow of his accesses changes as well. The organization should be flexible and efficiently incorporate the new RBAC workflows.
RBAC with CI
Given how it is humanly impossible to monitor and control every access, it is about time you chose a comprehensive IAM solution that ensures easy deployment of RBAC.
CI is a cloud IAM that offers Access Management, Identity Governance and Administration, Customer Identity and Access Management, and Privileged Access Management. The solution also includes business to consumer functions, unified endpoint management, personalized dashboards, high powered analytics, and business intelligence.
Drop-in a line at inquiry@crossidentity.com and connect with us to know about deploying CI.
