How do you implement secure access control and authorization policies for your web resources?

In my role as an ethical hacker and cybersecurity professional, I've often encountered organizations that struggle with maintaining an accurate inventory of their resources and users. like, while working with a financial services company, I spearheaded an initiative to document all their web assets, including APIs, databases, and user interfaces. We categorized these assets based on their sensitivity and importance to the business, assigning roles and permissions accordingly. By doing this, we not only improved security but also enhanced our ability to audit access and quickly address any potential vulnerabilities. Regular reviews ensured that the information remained current, helping us adapt to new threats and business needs effectively.

One way of documenting this resources is using a workspace such as Confluence, or even an excel sheet with entries listing the assets, asset owners, users on the assets and their permissions. This documentation will also support the future application, asset and user reviews.

Use MFA to enhance security by requiring two or more verification methods. Implement SSO to allow users to authenticate once and gain access to multiple resources. Implement least privilege and Role based access control. For web servers, Use API gateways to manage and secure access to APIs. Apply rate limiting to APIs to ensure fair usage. Enable logging of access control events to maintain an audit trail. Continuously monitor access logs and user activities to detect and respond to unauthorized access attempts. Configure UBEA detection rule for user anomaly detection.

One thing to note when implementing authentication and session management is authorization bypass and insecure direct object references. These are cases where an authenticated user can access resources they are not authorized for. This is a common flaw in applications and APIs and can be mitigated by applying the principle of continuous verification. Always verify that the user requesting a resource should have access to that resource.

For instance, during a security audit for a large retail chain, I discovered that many employees had far more access than necessary for their roles. This included permissions to modify critical system settings and access customer payment information. By restructuring the access control model using Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), we significantly reduced the number of users with high-level privileges. I also advocated for the implementation of Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) for more granular control, which allowed us to dynamically assign permissions based on context such as time of day and location.

In a recent engagement with a healthcare provider, I helped design and implement a monitoring system that tracked all access attempts to sensitive patient records. We used a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system to collect and analyze logs in real-time, enabling us to detect any unauthorized access or unusual patterns. This system was instrumental in identifying a potential insider threat, where an employee was accessing records outside of their normal duties. By having a robust monitoring and auditing process in place, we were able to respond swiftly, preventing any data breaches and ensuring that our access control policies were both effective and compliant with industry regulations.