How to Effectively Implement Role-Based Access Control?

Nowadays a lot of activities are performed over the Internet. But as more people are involved in the transaction circle, security and authorisation control becomes one of the biggest challenges and?concerns. Therefore, we need to manage and enforce a strong authorisation mechanism in large-scale web-environment and to protect internal information which is a critical factor for every organisation and essential to meet regulatory requirements.

Permissions within critical business applications and systems must be aligned with the business structure and processes. Furthermore, the actual state of users and assigned access rights must meet the reality of people’s authority for their actual position and function. By strictly mapping business positions and functions to roles within IT systems it is easy for an organisation to prove that target state and actual state are aligned. RBAC — Role Based Access Control — is a standard that defines what a role is and what functionality a system implementing roles as an authorisation model should support. Moreover, Role Based Access Control (RBAC) which provides some flexibility to security management.

RBAC and Identity and Access Management

Bundling access rights within applications is a common IT practice, as it allows you to set different levels of authorization inside a specific program. Unfortunately, bundling access rights on the application level does not actually put an end to the time-consuming manual work admins have to carry out. The reason being that in modern digital infrastructures, users don’t just use a single app or service, they use dozens. So even if you create appropriate permission bundles within each application, administrators still have to go through all of these services one by one to assign the right role whenever they create or edit a user.

What you really need to simplify this process is a centralized platform where all those permissions from different apps and systems run together. And that’s precisely where Identity Access Management (IAM) comes into play. IAM solutions take the basic concept of roles to the next level by allowing you to manage permissions across all systems through one automated platform. So, when an admin links a new user to a role, the IAM solution makes sure that user receives all intended permissions in every connected system. Your IAM product is able to do this because it is equipped with the interfaces and plugins needed to connect to your Active Directory, file servers, Exchange & SharePoint, cloud platforms such as MS 365 and Azure AD.??

Role-based access control, on the other hand, automates user and rights management, which ensures users only ever have access to resources they really need to do their jobs. This approach is also known as the principle of least privilege, or POLP. Not only does POLP mark a cornerstone of IT security, it is also an explicit requirement dictated by an increasing number of legal standards (HIPAA, SOX).

?Best practices for implementing RBAC

Before you start implementing RBAC, our advice is to begin with a conversation across departments, and then to proceed systematically to ease the transition. Remember that RBAC implementation requires high-level understanding of business structure and goals, as well. By collaborating from the start, you will be better prepared to reap the benefits of RBAC and get the most out of your efforts.

Develop an RBAC Strategy

The first step should be evaluating where you are. What systems, data, or processes in your organization would benefit from access control? We recommend you to include any job functions, technologies, and business operations.

The next step should be to consider where you want to be. Will you use RBAC to automate provisioning? Do you need a better way to control access to applications that store sensitive data? What is your desired outcome for this process?

And finally, note any gaps you need to tackle. Are your authentication/ authorization models consistent across your organization? Are there compliance or regulatory requirements you need to meet? Was there a security event that prompted you to switch to RBAC? Once you have mapped out your strategy, you are ready to move on to the details.

Inventory Your Systems

Make a list of every resource or service that requires access control. The list may include email, cloud apps, customer databases, shared folders on a file server, and so on.

Make analysis of your workforce

Role and access discovery is both art and science, and collaboration across IT, HR, and executive leaders will make the process easier. Start by grouping your workforce into roles based on shared access needs, but at the same time, avoid defining too many roles. The right number will restrict access enough to secure your systems without stifling creativity. Larger organizations may require a more systematic method of role creation in order to avoid common pitfalls such as role explosion, role overlap, and over-reliance on exceptions.

Create and Define Roles

Finally, reconcile your lists. Map the result of your workforce analysis to the resources from your inventory according to the principle of least privilege. This mapping will define your roles. For example, you may create a Basic User role, which has access to email and Slack and applies to all users in the organization. You may create a specialist role, such as Hiring Manager, which has read/write access to the employee database. You may create an Employee Database Administrator role, which has full control of the employee database. And so on for each department.

Establish a Governance Structure

After defining the roles, you need to establish a decision-making body to maintain them. Articulate, in writing, the project priorities and standards that serve the best interest of your organization as a whole. Your access control policies may include:?performance measures , risk-management strategies, role re-evaluation guidelines,?direction regarding who maintains roles, a plan to keep the policy up to date. Policy-based access control helps prevent role proliferation and keeps your RBAC project on track even as your company grows or conflicts between departments arise.

?Assign People to Roles

All of that preparation has laid the groundwork for the final step: implementation. Now that you have inventoried your systems and outlined the way your workforce uses them, it is time to assign roles to your employees and begin using RBAC to manage access rights and permissions. For example, larger organizations may choose to roll out RBAC in stages. Start with a small group of users, organized around a business function or department. Collect feedback and make any adjustments before moving to the next stage. This will minimize workforce disruption, help you build on small successes, and demonstrate the value of the role-based access control model.