The amount of data generated and used by companies, including Sifers-Grayson, is constantly increasing. Its volume and technologies’ development make businesses vulnerable to intruders, including insider threats. The actions of insiders can bring significant losses to the company. They can manipulate data for their benefit, hide their activities, cooperate with competitors, and commit other misconduct. Despite the many tricks that attackers can use, an Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) solution can secure the enterprise.
Using Identity Governance and Administration can deliver significant benefits for business. IGA is a security solution and policy by which enterprises reduce the risks associated with access to information and manage identity in the company (“Identity Governance,” n.d.). A more straightforward understanding of IGA – is a toolkit that helps companies manage who has access to what (Bago & Glazer, 2021). To fully understand the benefits of these tools, it is important to distinguish some aspects of security that they affect.
Businesses use large amounts of data, and it is essential to classify data to protect it. Various departments use different information and need to be differentiated by ownership – for example, financial data, separated from engineering. Data can be labeled as to its sensitivity as confidential, secret, restricted, internal, and public (Istrefi, 2019). This classification determines the value of information and its need for protection – from confidential and secret, which require the most significant protection, to the public data in the public domain. Employees should have a distinct level of access to different data groups classified by ownership and sensitivity, which is the basis for security.
Employees’ access levels to various data are related to the responsibilities they perform. In this regard, the company needs to provide separation of duties and least privilege. Separation of duties involves this division of the task between several people; for example, one administers the system, and the other checks the audit log preventing the possibility of fraud (Aslim, 2020). The least privilege, in turn, is to give employees only the minimum necessary opportunities to fulfill their duties (Haber & Rolls, 2020). Together, these tools exclude unauthorized access of employees to company data.
Providing separation of duties and least privilege for many employees is complicated and can cause disarray. However, the Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) strategy used within IGA helps solve this problem (Stack, n.d.). The RBAC defines user groups’ access to functions and information based on their assigned roles (Bago & Glazer, 2021). For example, the HR department will not have access to the Financial Instruments, and vice versa. At the same time, IGA allows automation and simplifies all these role management processes. Thus, IGA “offers organizations increased visibility into the identities and access privileges of users, so they can better manage who has access to what systems, and when” (“Identity Governance,” n.d., para. 3). Identity governance offers the following three main reasons for investing in it:
- Reduce risks and improve security. The described capabilities and tools as data classification, segregation of duties, and least privileges ensure that users have limited access, restricting threats.
- Compliance and improved certification processes. More and more laws put forward requirements for data protection and prescribe additional audits – IGA automates these processes.
- Operational efficiency. Automated protection processes relieve excessive pressure on security teams and other personnel responsible for identification and data protection.
Identity Governance and Administration is a complex solution for data protection. Different data groups require contrasting levels of security and can be used by various departments. For this reason, it is vital to limit access to them through the separation of duties and the least privileges. Role-Based Access Control is an effective strategy for limiting access, but assigning roles with many employees is confusing and chaotic. IGA automates the necessary processes to ensure security, facilitate reporting, and increase efficiency.
References
Aslim, O. K. (2020). What is the difference between “Separation of Duties” and “Least Privilege.“ Cub Syber. Web.
Bago, E., & Glazer, I. (2021). Introduction to identity-part 1: admin-time. IDPro Body of Knowledge, 1(5). Web.
Haber M. J., & Rolls, D. (2020). Identity attack vectors. Apress.
Identity Governance & Administration. (n.d.). Core Security. Web.
Istrefi, K. (2019). Information classification – why it matters? Professional Evaluation and Certification Board (PECB). Web.
Lack, R. (n.d.). What is Role Based Access Control (RBAC)? Ideiio. Web.