Access Governance: Benefits, Solutions, and Best Practices

What Is Access Governance?

Access governance (AG) aims to mitigate the risks associated with unnecessary access rights granted to end users of computing systems. Access governance is a critical element that can help organizations build their compliance strategy.

An important goal of access governance is to reduce the cost and effort of monitoring and enforcing access policies, including organizational procedures like recertification. Access governance software tools help track access, validate change requests, automatically apply role-based access control (RBAC) or attribute-based access control (ABAC) policies, and simplify reporting.

This is part of a series of articles about identity and access management (IAM).

Application Access Governance vs. Identity Governance & Administration

While both solutions share common features like Segregation of Duties (SoD) Management, risk-based access requests and workflows, identity analytics, and control library integration, AAG goes further by introducing fine-grained SoD management across applications. It includes out-of-the-box SoD rulesets, mitigating controls, regulatory compliance controls, role mining and engineering, privileged access management with log review, and license management.

These enhancements cater to the requirements of cross-application governance, extending the capabilities beyond the baseline features offered by Identity Governance and Administration.

Benefits of Access Governance

Access governance helps an organization monitor and control user accounts as a business grows in size and complexity.

Access governance minimizes the burden on IT administrators by automating processes and policies. Together with an enterprise identity and access management (IAM) solution, access governance can also provide comprehensive insights about access to sensitive systems. IT staff can see who has access to which systems, which accounts were last used, and who has administrator access, both at the individual account level and across the organization.

This allows IT and security teams to more easily identify security weaknesses, unused accounts, and excessive permissions.

Key Components of Access Governance Solutions

Key components of access governance solutions include:

• Role-based access control — modeling access rights based on business roles, in line with the principle of least privilege. Employees and user accounts are grouped into roles based on department, job role, or other criteria. Instead of assigning permissions directly to user accounts, users are assigned to these roles and have access to everything their role needs. This makes it easier to revoke privileges when users switch roles or leave the organization.
• Approval workflows — allows managers to grant access to the data and resources without the involvement of IT staff. Approval workflows allow decision-makers, also known as data owners, to define which role should be associated with a particular resource. Assigning data owners and allowing them to set custom workflows can help streamline the approval process.
• User access reviews — regular user access review prevents unnecessary privileges from accumulating over time. Excessive privileges, or privileges that were once needed but are no longer relevant, present a serious security risk. Access governance solutions prevent the build-up of unnecessary privileges by sending automated alerts to data owners. The data owner must ensure that the assigned permissions are still in use. Permissions that are no longer needed are automatically removed.
• Elevated Access Management (EAM) — enables organizations to grant real-time, precise access to applications or systems for both human and non-human users. EAM not only facilitates the elevation of privileges but also ensures that users can only access privileged accounts and resources when necessary and for a specified period to carry out essential tasks.

How to Choose an Access Governance System

The following are key considerations for choosing an access governance system:

• User interface — easy-to-use interface that provides business users with an overview of access rights and details about their relationship to roles and responsibilities.
• Support for structured and unstructured data — the solution should not only control access to applications but also to data across the organization, including unstructured data like documents and media files, whether they are stored in distributed file systems, cloud storage, or elsewhere.
• Support for accountability — a solution should enable the assignment of data owners who understand the business context of access requests and can make decisions on whether access is appropriate or not.
• Compliance requirements — access governance is tightly connected to compliance, so it is important to involve compliance teams and ensure the solution provides all the requirements mandated by the relevant compliance standards and enables identity auditing.
• Advanced capabilities — the solution should support authentication, auto-provisioning, and self-service access requests.
• Integrations — the solution should integrate with existing identity and access management (IAM) systems and user directories and must support common platforms and technologies you might adopt in the future.

Related content: Read our guide to user access review

The Role of Automation in User Access Governance

Streamlining Access Requests and Approvals

Automation plays a pivotal role in streamlining access requests and approvals, significantly enhancing data access governance. Automated systems enable business processes to become more efficient by reducing manual interventions. When a user requests access, automated workflows ensure that the request is routed to the appropriate authorized individuals for approval, expediting the process. This reduces the likelihood of delays and errors associated with manual handling, ensuring that users receive timely access to necessary resources.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) can be integrated into these workflows to further secure the access request process, ensuring that only verified individuals can approve or request access.

Real-Time Access Monitoring and Alerts

Real-time access monitoring is essential for effective risk management. Automated systems continuously track user activities, generating alerts for any suspicious or unauthorized access attempts. This proactive approach allows security teams to quickly identify and respond to potential threats, mitigating risks before they escalate.

By integrating single sign-on (SSO) solutions, organizations can centralize user authentication, making it easier to monitor and manage access across multiple systems. Automated alerts provide visibility into access patterns, helping to detect anomalies and ensure compliance with data access governance policies.

Automated Provisioning and Deprovisioning

Automated provisioning and deprovisioning of user accounts are crucial for maintaining secure and efficient business processes. When new employees join, or existing employees change roles or leave the organization, automated systems can instantly update access permissions based on predefined rules. This ensures that users have the appropriate level of access for their roles, adhering to the principle of least privilege.

Additionally, automated deprovisioning helps prevent security risks associated with orphaned accounts or excessive permissions. By connecting HR data to access rights, organizations can ensure that user access is always aligned with current job responsibilities, enhancing overall data access governance.

Access Governance Best Practices

Define Business Needs and Compliance Requirements

Businesses must comply with industry standards and regulations. Each organization will have different business goals and compliance requirements, with unique data access policies and retention strategies. At the early stages of access policy planning, an access governance committee must identify the criteria for the specific organization.

For example, a healthcare company might have a requirement to classify data according to content (i.e., if it contains protected health data). Another industry, like the legal sector, may require companies to classify content based on client information.

Apply the Principle of Least Privilege When Defining Access Policies

Access governance enforcement requires tight, well-defined access policies. An access policy is a rule that indicates who has access to the rights that a user should have when accessing an asset.

As a best practice in access governance, policies should aim for least privileged access. This means that users have the minimal access they need to complete their tasks. Access governance should ensure that only authorized personnel have access to critical assets at all times.

Connect HR Data to Access Rights

Human resources systems already track changes in job titles and employment status, which can help organizations define access rights and enforce access governance.

Human resource systems can be configured to enable access based on specific responsibilities and can provision and de-provision access when roles change. It is important to have a custom system for managing third-party identities and access because third-party relationships represent a major risk for the organization.

Periodically Evaluate the Access Plan

A robust access governance plan requires continuous monitoring and periodic evaluations. Roles and regulations change, requiring updates to the plan. Organizations must determine how to keep up with these changes and implement the latest technologies.

Access governance policies should undergo regular reviews—at least annually, given how much can change in a year. Organizations should also conduct additional ad hoc assessments—for instance, when an acquisition or merger introduces new people, data, and tools to the company. Data and other legislation can frequently change in some sectors (e.g., financial services).

Advanced Analytics for Enhanced Access Governance

Utilizing Machine Learning for Access Management Insights

Incorporating machine learning into access governance provides organizations with advanced capabilities to manage user access effectively. Machine learning algorithms analyze vast amounts of data to identify patterns and anomalies, offering deep insights into access behaviors.

These insights enable organizations to refine their data access governance strategies, ensuring that access rights are appropriate and aligned with business processes. By continuously learning from user activities, machine learning models can predict and prevent unauthorized access, enhancing the overall security framework.

Predictive Analytics for Risk Assessment

Predictive analytics plays a crucial role in risk management by forecasting potential security threats based on historical data. By analyzing trends and patterns, predictive models can identify users or activities that pose a higher risk, allowing organizations to take preemptive measures.

This proactive approach to risk assessment helps in prioritizing security efforts and allocating resources effectively. Incorporating predictive analytics into access governance frameworks ensures that organizations stay ahead of potential threats, maintaining a robust security posture.

Enhancing Decision-Making with Data-Driven Insights

Data-driven insights are essential for making informed decisions in access governance. Advanced analytics tools process and interpret data from various sources, providing comprehensive views of access patterns and potential risks. These insights empower authorized individuals to make strategic decisions regarding access policies and controls. For instance, data can reveal which roles require additional scrutiny or which permissions need adjustment.

By leveraging analytics, organizations can enhance their decision-making processes, ensuring that access governance policies are both effective and compliant with regulatory standards. Integrating these insights with multi-factor authentication and single sign-on solutions further strengthens the access management framework, providing a seamless and secure user experience.

Access Governance with PathLock

Pathlock builds on existing Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC) to create a security layer based on the context of access, such as time, device, location, IP address, etc. Using Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC), Pathlock allows you to restrict and/or mask user access to sensitive or confidential data at the page and field level inside your ERP applications. This gives security teams the controls they need to not only determine risk but also mitigate it across ERP applications.

The solution also allows you to implement layered security controls within your ERP applications. The platform’s ability to mask data at the field level shields sensitive PII data like Social Security Numbers, bank account details, etc., from data breaches. While the Click-to-View feature allows users to view data when needed, it also creates an access log that helps security teams detect suspicious user activity.

Pathlock goes beyond traditional access governance solutions to provide a 360° view of authorization usage and behavior-based user activity. The solution creates user profiles based on historic user access rights and data, which are then analyzed to recommend the removal of unused authorizations and detect deviations in authorization usage.

Schedule a demo with our security experts to discover how Pathlock’s adaptive security enhances governance and compliance within your ERP applications.