For many businesses and organizations, the most important question a digital security solution aims to answer is, "Who has access to what?" This is a fundamental consideration when it comes to access control, which involves securing systems, networks, data, and more from unauthorized users. Even if it's similarly vital to organizational security across many industries, access control can involve a variety of different technologies and procedures. In this guide, we'll touch on the basics of access control, going into detail about its common components and explaining why they're all important to the safety of your organization.
What is access control?
Access control is an approach within cybersecurity that determines who can access the data and resources of a given system or organization. It's often a series of mechanisms and policies that all members of a network or organization must rely on and follow. The goal of having an access control system is to ensure that only authorized users can gain access to sensitive information. That's why the main focal points of access control tend to be user identities and authentication systems.
Here are a few common elements of data security that access control systems provide:
- Verification processes: A way for users to verify their identity in order to access information. Within an access control framework, verification processes are designed to provide extra layers of protection in the form of two-factor authentication, passkeys, biometrics and more.
- Balance of control: A way for administrators to manage overall access control settings and features as well as specific authorization details in a single environment. Quality access control solutions often have intuitive capabilities that allow teams to manage both of these dimensions with ease. This is a key feature for resolving case-by-case issues that might arise with specific users or roles.
- Auditing and login records: A comprehensive record of login attempts that can display vital information like login credentials, a timestamp, and a location or IP. Logs like these can help detect suspicious behavior, identify security vulnerabilities in an authentication system, and provide a trail of activity in the event of a breach.
- Administrative user management: An effective, hands-on way for developers and administrators to easily manage, update or remove user identities as needed. Access control procedures often rely on a user management solution so that a cybersecurity team can efficiently resolve login issues faced by clients or employees. This also allows organizations to respond quickly to cyberattacks and minimize the amount of damage control required of their team.
- Data security standards: A regulated approach that emphasizes compliance with industry-wide information security standards. Following the practices and policies of well-known industry security standards can fortify an organization's access control strategy and minimize the potential attack surface.
Types of access control
Now that we've gone over some basic characteristics of access control systems, let's get into the most effective and widely-used types of access control. These approaches make use of various control points, rely on different methods of authentication, and have other unique features too. Even so, most of these are safe and popular access control methods tailored to specific needs in different industries.
To start, almost every type uses access control lists, which are rulesets that determine whether or not a user can access a given digital environment within a custom application. These rules are split up into either filesystem or networking access control lists. Filesystem lists deal with a user's access to specific files and directories, while networking lists determine which users can access the system network. Together, these two types of lists serve as the rudimentary backbone of an access control strategy.
Role-based access control
Role-based access control (RBAC) is the most prevalent and versatile approach to access control in many fields. To minimize the potential ways that unauthorized access can be obtained, the methodology of RBAC is centered around the idea that users should only be given the minimum amount of clearance needed to perform an action. This is known as the principle of least privilege, which makes it so that minimal data will be leaked if the identity or login credentials of one user is compromised by a bad actor.
RBAC makes use of the authorization levels we talked about before to create a segmented access control strategy so that no individual employee has the ability to compromise a vast amount of sensitive information in the event of a breach.
Discretionary access control
With a discretionary approach to access control, the owner of a particular resource determines who has access to their resources and decides how much clearance each individual user has, hence the name. This is a very flexible approach to access control and is often used for streamlining collaborative efforts within an organization.
For example, discretionary access control is put into use when you share a document with coworkers and give them permissions to view or edit the document. However, those same coworkers are now allowed to share your document with others, which illustrates a vulnerability with this method. Discretionary access control allows for users to gain access to resources more easily, which can pose a bigger risk for data breaches.
Mandatory access control
Mandatory access control is far more stringent when it comes to authorization and data security. This approach involves an access hierarchy similar to role-based access control, but only the administrator can set or change the access permissions within a given system. The administrator's account sets parameters that all other accounts must follow in order to gain access to the system.
Even after they're granted access to a directory or environment, employees can't adjust access permissions for other users; the administrator always remains in control. Mandatory access control is one of the most secure approaches to information security, which is why it's used by government entities and other institutions that often handle sensitive data. However, reducing the potential attack surface also creates a bottleneck in which all users' access permissions rely on a single account, making it a rather inflexible approach to access control.
Attribute-based access control
This access control approach takes into account the attributes of a user, their device, the resource they're accessing, and their system's environment. Individual dynamic factors like these determine whether or not a user can access a given resource or directory, which culminates in a highly specific, granular method of user authorization. Attribute-based access control is the most widely used form of fine-grained access control, which is a more common term referring to this highly specific style of control over data access. This is a very secure method because of how much information it factors in, but it can also be tedious to manage and use for the same reason.
When an employee requests access to a directory, for instance, a system using attribute-based access control would log their job title, associated security clearance, and other user attributes. This information would then be cross-referenced with the directory's location and the sensitivity level of the data inside, as well as the network the employee is using to request access. If these attributes prove to be favorable and the employee is supposed to have access to the directory with their clearance level, they would then be granted access. In a way, attribute-based access control resembles multi-factor authentication by validating multiple aspects of the user's identity before allowing access.
Each of these access control methods offers unique benefits, and many data security solutions will combine elements from different access control approaches to create a unique product. The bottom line is that all approaches to access control are heavily concerned with identity and access management, and their goals are to secure sensitive data and properly moderate the avenues used to access it. When looking for an access control solution, consider your organization's size, the amount of sensitive data your employees handle, and the degree of control you want administrators and developers to have on the back end. With these factors in mind, you're sure to find an efficient and secure system for access control.