There are always people working for a company who have been there from the beginning and have experience in every department. In spite of their high value to the organisation as employees, they pose a security risk by having unrestricted access to highly confidential information. Regular user access checks might help you reduce this risk and safeguard your most valuable resources.
Regularly reviewing user permissions is an essential part of access management. This article gives an overview of what user access audits are, why they’re important, and what kinds of IT regulations and laws require you to do them. You should have a user access review checklist and a set of suggested processes ready to go to make sure the auditing process runs as smoothly as possible.
Exactly what is a user access review, and why is it so important to do one?
In the context of user account management and access control, a user access reviews (or user access audit) is a standard operation. Checking the permissions of all employees and external parties on a regular basis is an important component of this process.
During a review of user access, the following are taken into consideration again:
Areas where a second look might be made with the help of a user access audit
The ultimate goal of a user access review is to limit unauthorised access to sensitive data and resources in order to prevent security breaches. Some security officers may be inclined to skip the review if they have implemented security best practises such granular access control, zero trust architecture, and the principle of least privilege.
However, similar breaches like the one that was committed by a former employee of Cash App Investing might occur if access audits aren’t performed. The perpetrator was able to access and steal private data from the Cash App, which exposed the personal details of over 8 million users, both active and inactive. You may alleviate some of these worries by assessing the permissions you’ve been given.
The following dangers might be mitigated by doing a check of user permissions:
When employees in an organization progressively get access to more sensitive information than is required for their duties, a phenomenon known as privilege creep occurs and when employees take on more responsibilities, they do not lose their current level of access rights. As a consequence, new advantages are established.
Conclusion
When an insider uses their special access or status for anything other than or in opposition to what it was originally intended, they are committing a kind of privilege abuse. It’s possible that people behave this way out of carelessness, stupidity, or malice. However, despite the many causes, they often lead to cybersecurity threats.