What is Access Provisioning?

Access provisioning refers to the process of granting users the least or necessary access rights and privileges to resources or data to perform their roles effectively. This way, they have the appropriate permissions to fulfill their responsibilities.

What Role Does Access Provisioning Play?

Access provisioning enables an organization to streamline access management related to various critical resources, networks, and databases. Access provisioning, when deployed properly, ensures the following for an organization:

1. Increased security - With access provisioning, organizations can maintain a consistent overview of all sensitive data and system access permissions. Any granted permissions can be dynamically modified based on the business and operational needs of the organization. Most importantly, it significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches.
2. Increased productivity - The entire process of granting and revoking access permissions can be automated and streamlined based on the unique needs of the organization. As a result, authorized users can continue to retain appropriate access to resources vital to performing their jobs effectively without compromising critical resources or data.
3. Regulatory compliance - Leveraged properly, access provisioning helps organizations implement an appropriate degree of access control based on the regulatory requirements they may be subject to. With proper documentation and tracking, all such obligations can be honored effectively.

What Are the Methods of Access Provisioning?

Some of the most effective methods deployed in access provisioning include:

1. Role-Based Access Provisioning - With Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), organizations can delegate access permissions based on the personnel’s role and position within an organization. Such an approach simplifies access management by grouping access permissions based on job functions, making access permissions easier to grant and revoke.
2. Attribute-Based Access Provisioning - Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) is a comparatively more dynamic approach where a user’s attributes such as department, tasks, and job description, resource attributes such as asset sensitivity level, and environmental attributes such as the time of day and frequency of access requests are all taken into account when determining a user's access permissions. With such an approach, access permissions can be modified in real-time based on needs and requirements.
3. Rule-Based Access Provisioning - In this method, organizations assign users access permissions based on a predefined set of rules and policies. These are particularly helpful when ensuring certain assets and resources are only accessible to certain organizational departments.
4. Temporary Access Provisioning - Temporary Access Provisioning (TAP) is useful when access needs to be granted for specific tasks and projects. Such permissions automatically expire after a fixed period or upon a certain progress within the project. Deploying such an approach ensures no long-term permissions exist once a task or purpose has been fulfilled.

How Can Access Provisioning Workflows Be Streamlined?

The following strategies and tactics can be leveraged to streamline the access provisioning workflows:

1. Automation - Leveraging automation is the best option for an organization to streamline its workflows and implement greater efficiencies. Not only can automated tools reduce the overall time and effort spent on access provisioning manually, but they can also be designated to handle mundane and routine tasks such as user onboarding, access requests, grants, and revocations.
2. Centralized Identity Management - With a centralized identity access management system in place, organizations can not only maintain a thorough record of all access permissions granted and revoked but also gain a singular source of truth towards leveraging control and visibility into all such permissions.
3. Role Catalogs - Organizations must maintain comprehensive records of all roles that have or are likely to need access to critical data resources. A role catalog defines all such roles and the degree of permissions they may be granted.
4. Regular Audits - Continuous audits and reviews of all granted access permissions ensure that all permissions are appropriate to the roles and responsibilities of the personnel with access to critical data assets and resources. This information can be leveraged to identify and eliminate any access permissions that may be over-privileged or outdated.

What Are the Best Practices in Access Provisioning?

Some of the best practices in access provisioning include the following:

1. Principle of Least Privilege - The Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) ensures that all user permissions are granted with minimal access necessary to their roles within an organization. Such an approach is vital when reducing excessive privileges, which poses a significant security risk.
2. Regular Audits - Continuous audits allow for a thorough review of all access permissions, with direct identification of which personnel and applications have access to what resources. This information can then be leveraged to address any security vulnerabilities and potential blind spots.
3. Access Certification - Access certification allows for constant vetting of all data owners’ and managers’ access privileges. Such a proactive approach ensures that all such permissions can be edited and modified based on the most immediate business needs of the organization.
4. Strong Authentication - A strong authentication mechanism is good practice in any case. However, within access provisioning, a strong authentication system that includes multi-factor authentication (MFA) among others, ensures that critical resources and assets are only accessible by personnel that have an adequate reason to access them.
5. Documentation - Though documentation may seem like a trivial matter if done correctly, it can prove highly beneficial for an organization to figure out flaws and loopholes within its own access controls and policies. Additionally, such documentation can then be leveraged for compliance and other troubleshooting-related activities.