For large organizations, it can be difficult to manage who has access to what. Employees, users, developers, and administrators all need different levels of access to properly do their job or make use of a system. That's why identity frameworks are used by most applications and services with a large user base.
An identity framework is a system that helps manage the authorization of users and controls the authentication process to access the service that uses it. Most cloud-based applications, firms, and online organizations rely on an identity framework to keep their systems secure. It's a helpful tool for insulating services against cyberattacks and data leaks.
By having an identity framework in place, any organization can prevent unauthorized users from accessing sensitive data, but that's not all. Most identity frameworks are also used to manage user privileges on a granular level, which is key to having a functional organization. In this article, we'll go over the process of managing users with an identity framework and why it's important to any service's operational safety.
Why is managing privileges important?
A good access control management tool is critical to minimizing the vulnerabilities in an organization's network. If employees have access to far more sensitive systems than what they need to use regularly, their accounts could be exploited to cause harm in a data breach. If you aren't diligent about properly managing user roles and privileges, here are a few issues that will arise.
First of all, you're likely to encounter increased vulnerability in your system. If an employee were to have their account stolen, the aggressor could use their access privileges to cause harm, especially if the account was given excessive access in the first place. This makes insider threats a huge area of concern when user privileges are poorly structured and maintained.
Compliance issues are going to be another obstacle as well. Many information security specifications like ISO 27001 and the GDPR have stringent policies on access control. Poorly managed user privileges can easily violate the guidelines set by these standards, thus damaging your organization's reputation and even potentially creating a legal issue.
Moreover, having an unstructured system of user privileges is inefficient and wastes time. It's a hassle assigning permissions to a given user without a predefined role hierarchy, and trying to manage roles without one is a burden. Identity frameworks save time by allowing quick and specific adjustments to role permissions, not to mention a myriad of other functions.
General practices for user privileges
Let's discuss some important access control practices that are reliable approaches to managing user privileges. Each has a general advantage relevant to information security, and there's some overlap between these principles too.
- Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP): An approach to access control that grants users and employees only the minimum amount of access they need to perform necessary tasks. PoLP helps cut down on insider threats and decreases the attack surface for a potential cyberattack if an employee's account becomes compromised. The less access an individual account has, the lower risk it poses.
- Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): User privileges are based entirely on their job or role within an organization, often referring to PoLP to limit access. Identity frameworks that use role-based access control are usually well-structured because the organization needs a good role hierarchy in order for RBAC to be as effective as possible. This policy separates duties based on user privileges, which adds extra security to actions like financial or data-related requests within a system.
- Just-in-Time Access: The principle grants privileged access to users within a limited window of time, which adds another security variable that's difficult to bypass. This can be implemented in a few ways besides creating a temporary avenue for privileged access. For instance, just-in-time access is responsible for why you'll get logged out of a company site or financial page for idling for a certain period of time after logging in. It's also what drives authentication apps to provide limited-time security codes that refresh at intervals as a way to confirm your identity when logging in.
- Zero Trust Architecture: A concept in access control where every user and device is assumed to be untrustworthy until proven otherwise. If you've ever logged into one of your accounts from a new device, you've likely had to take extra steps to confirm your identity even if you used the right username and password. Identity frameworks with zero trust architecture ensure that user privileges aren't recognized by device or saved logins - they must prove their identity first in order to carry out what they're authorized to do within a system.
Specific guide to user management
The best practices are safe and useful, but they wont help you build a role hierarchy within an identity framework and add the appropriate users. That's why we've come up with an intuitive process for managing user privileges in an identity framework.
Take inventory
First, review the applications, databases, collaboration tools, and other assets you or your organization uses that will require privileges to access. Pay attention to specific services that will require highly granular privilege management. For example, you would want all employee roles to have a baseline level of access to a team communication platform, but you wouldn't want the same privilege policy for the organization's financial records.
Define and categorize roles
As we said, it'll be much faster and easier to manage user privileges with a set of roles to work with. Start with general categories you want roles to fit in based on department or tasks - marketing, financial, HR, and IT roles would all need access to different resources, for example.
Create a list of basic permissions that each department member should have, then move on to making specific roles, which are essential in an identity framework. If we looked within the IT department group, for instance, the system administrator would have vastly different user privileges compared to an associate developer working on a low-priority UI project. It also helps to create roles in line with active projects or long-term goals, especially where special privileges might be needed to improve an organization's efficiency.
Build role-specific permissions
After roles and general department permissions are created, there's some heavy lifting to do. Interface with team members from each department to understand what resources each specific job needs access to. Next, create roles in your identity framework that allow access to the corresponding resources. It's important that you refer to the above general practices during this step too:
- Provide the least amount of access needed to complete all tasks within each role.
- Allow access only during work hours from a trusted device.
- Ensure users will be logged out of relevant platforms if they stay inactive for too long.
Test and apply
When you're done creating roles, review the role hierarchy in the identity framework with a system administrator. Make sure there's no excessive access to resources allotted to any role. It helps to run some tests to ensure an account with a given role can't access unauthorized data. You could also create a few empty roles to be used for new jobs or short-term projects in the future. After you've done significant testing, notify employees and begin assigning them to their appropriate roles.
Review and monitor
When the roles are assigned, keep an eye on any audit logs in the identity framework to watch for unusual activity or unauthorized access to resources. This is important because vulnerabilities in the early stages of role hierarchy deployment will stick out as weak spots to any bad actors looking to access or leak your organization's data. It's also a good idea to listen to employee feedback on the role hierarchy to ensure that everyone can access what they need to get the job done.
Stay updated and vigilant
Even after you've checked all the boxes, user privilege management isn't a one-time change. Roles must be routinely updated as new needs arise within the organization, and audit logs should be checked frequently for signs of a breach or flaw in the privilege hierarchy. If any roles that have access to highly sensitive data go unused for a long time, make sure to revoke their privileges in the identity framework. Lastly, inform and educate your coworkers on the best cybersecurity practices so that no one makes a costly mistake that could risk important information.
By now, you have a foolproof system for managing user privileges in your identity framework!
Want to learn more?
Learn more about how identity frameworks can help manage employee roles and user verification for your apps by exploring the Duende IdentityServer documentation, where you'll find comprehensive guidance on identity and access management solutions for .NET applications.