Five Ways Access Control Transforms Organizational Security

Five-Ways-Access-Control-Transforms-Organizational-Security

In an organization, there are departments, roles, functionalities, and resources. Each one of these plays a vital role in ensuring the smooth running of a company. More so, this smooth running can be ensured when all of these work in tandem with each other. This means the right people are working with the right resources and right skillset known to them. To achieve this level of coordination and know precisely who has access to what, a detailed note of it all is a must. If you only have a handful of people in your organization, this is an achievable task. But what if you are a company with hundreds of employees? How do you ensure all of it? This is where access control comes into the picture. Executing this manually can give any IT guy a headache. But, automating it can revolutionize the way your organization functions.

To just show the gravitas of the situation, according to a report, on an average, every employee had access to 17 million files, and 17% of the sensitive files were accessible to all employees! This carelessness could turn your company upside down if it falls into the hands of a bad actor.

So here are the five ways through which access control can change your organization.

1. Access control enhances productivity

What does it take to ensure productivity? Engagement, morale, perks? All of these are definitely things that can boost employees’ minds and encourage them to be more productive. If you’ve reached the point where you have boosted their morale, is that all?

How do you empower them from there on? This is where the right technology comes into place. Technology that provides them with the right resources as and when they need them. In an Identity Management based access control mechanism, every employee is entitled to applications based on their role, such that they could even start being productive on day 1. Because employees feel that 27% of their office hours are spent feeling disorganized, be it because of too many application requests or not having the right tools at hand—they all contribute to them feeling lost and unproductive.

If there are a proper access review and control technology in place with appropriate workflows for approval—any access requirement could be fulfilled in no time. More importantly, all of these accesses are available on a dashboard where efficient access reviews can also be obtained. This ensures productivity does not come at the cost of security.

2. No more shadow IT

Shadow IT is something that occurs when someone without admin rights ends up approving accesses—or even approving accesses without taking a look at their access rights or entitlements. Given the fast-paced world we are in today; some times accesses are provided just to get the work done. The need to get work done takes precedence over security and caution. If this access is approved for a bad actor, then it leaves several opportunities to be hacked. More so, these accesses are off the record. No one would even know if they haven’t been revoked even after the work is done.

When access control is implemented appropriately, the need for shadow IT does not arise. Every access approval goes through a process. Automatically some accesses are provided. Sometimes when the risk of access is high, the solution notifies them of the predicament so that the approver can make an informed decision.

3. Ensures no mistakes are causing you millions

Most of the time, data breaches occur because someone was careless enough to lose an unencrypted device, repeat a password, write them down, or simply click on the wrong link.

These mistakes could cost you heavily. But, the good thing about access control is that even if an employee’s account is hacked, there is only so much they can do with their information. Because you have now restricted their access to only what is needed and thereby limiting the hacker, and when you are notified of a wrongful login, you could immediately take a look at the accesses in this account and revoke them all. Outsmart the hacker!

4. Easier to implement advanced solutions like risk engines

Although access control is a seamless way to keep your applications secure, you can take it a notch higher with a complete IAM platform like Compact Identity.

You could obtain context to every access using a risk engine. Such that even if a hacker gets hold of an account with privileged accesses, they are nipped in the bud. This is done by considering factors such as time of login, IP address, and location and comparing them against the regular data, the risk score will increase. They can either lead to a step-up authentication or barring the access altogether. Such functionalities could be the difference between getting a hacker and stopping the hacker.

5. Stay compliant

“Who has access to what” is a prominent compliance question. With newer regulations like GDPR, HIPPA, CCPA, and more, answering such questions promptly is a matter of hefty fines. With stringent access control policies in place, these answers are no longer hard to explain.

With regular access review campaigns launched, every access can be revoked on time.

Access control is also helpful in providing an organized trail of access for audits. The simpler and transparent the audit, the more likely you are at staying compliant.

In short, access control brings order to your organization, secures you, and at the same time accelerates productivity.

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