In a landscape riddled with cyber threats, safeguarding sensitive information is not just a priority but a necessity. To mitigate the vulnerability of data breaches, User Access Reviews (UARs) have emerged as a linchpin practice in fortifying data security fortresses.
Understanding User Access Reviews (UARs)
User Access Reviews involve the meticulous scrutiny and authentication of user permissions and access rights to an organization’s systems and data repositories. Through regular audits and reviews, organizations ensure that individuals have the appropriate level of access required to perform their job duties. By implementing UARs, organizations can more easily reduce the risk of data breaches and compliance violations by easily identifying and rectifying discrepancies, such as excessive access privileges, dormant accounts, or unauthorized access.
Challenges of Traditional UAR Methods
Traditionally, UARs have been conducted through manual processes, such as spreadsheets and email-driven inspections. However, these methods have inherent limitations that impede effective security management:
- Human Error:
Manual processes are extremely vulnerable to mistakes and these errors can have large-scale ramifications for an organization. For instance, a simple administrative oversight, like forgetting to cut off access for a terminated employee, can increase an organization's attack surface and leave them open to getting hacked.
- Delays and Inefficiencies:
Traditional UAR processes are time-consuming and burdensome, often leading to delays in review completion. This is especially common with email-based reviews which often involve lengthy back-and-forth discussions, making it difficult to track progress and document review outcomes. These lags can cause violations of key policies such as the Principle of Least Privilege and precipitate a build up of users who retain inappropriate access to critical resources for an extended period of time.
- Lack of Comprehensive Oversight:
Without the aid of systematized processes and centralized application management, many organizations fail to attain a clear understanding of the user entitlements in their environment. This lack of clarity leads to marked security gaps that go unnoticed and undetected, leaving room for users to retain inappropriate access and increasing their attack surface. Furthermore, in the event of a breach, this lack of visibility can hinder the incident response process as well as the subsequent forensic analysis, making it challenging to identify its cause, scope and overall impact on the organization’s security posture.
- Compliance Risks:
Manual review processes often lack the structure, consistency, and organization required to ensure positive audit outcomes. This is due to many factors including the security knowledge gap, resource constraints, and more. Regardless of the reason, organizations who fail audits commonly experience legal penalties and reputational damage. Not only that, but failing to comply with industry regulations and data privacy laws also elevates the likelihood of a security failure with potential outcomes like theft, destruction or ransom demands. Ultimately, overlooking compliance regulations can tarnish an organization's entire reputation, cost them large financial expenses, and even put them out of business.
Introducing Clarity Security's 10-Minute User Access Reviews
To combat the hardships experienced and increased risks involved with running identity governance efforts manually, Clarity Security developed the ultimate game-changer: 10 Minute User Access Reviews. Powered by machine learning technology, the Clarity platform simplifies IGA efforts, leading to simpler and faster user access reviews, better management of resources, and positive audit outcomes.
Why does a 10 Minute User Access Review Matter?
If it's too hard, it won't happen correctly. Everyone has a day job. Compliance is a tax on your managers, and perceived as low value (even though security and audit is everyone's problem). Struggling to have good audit outcomes, or even close out your audits is proof you have this issue!
4 Ways Clarity Improves User Access Reviews:
- Risk Prioritization at Scale:
By leveraging the power of machine learning and advanced data analytics, Clarity’s 10 Minute User Access Reviews provide a fast and accurate way to conduct audits and remain compliant. Bypassing traditional and resource-intensive processes, Clarity’s solution assesses each piece of access, prioritizes the top 1-5% highest-risk items, and displays them for reviewers in order of importance.
- Automated Evidence Collection:
Much of the risk involved with manual processes lies in the cumbersome number of screenshots, spreadsheets, and other methods of meticulous tracking that reviewers are responsible for not only keeping track of, but also understanding how to apply appropriately. With Clarity, every new identity or changed access items is instantly recorded. This information is available to be pulled and used for an audit at any point in time, completely eliminating all of the frustrating documentation that comes with manual methods.
- Efficient Automations:
Clarity streamlines the UAR process, allowing administrators to automate every step of the access review process, including: initiation, review, approval, and remediation. Not only ensuring a consistent and efficient process, these workflows also cut down on the time it takes to complete reviews and reduce the likelihood of errors and delays.
- Superior Reporting:
Clarity provides comprehensive, in-depth reporting capabilities to enhance the UAR process. Currently offering 12 different types of access reviews, Clarity allows reviewers to analyze identities and their entitlements in more specific, and more meaningful, ways. Additionally, reviewers also have the ability to pull reports based on past access, making any audit clarifications a breeze.
In today’s ever-changing digital landscape, it’s become increasingly crucial to conduct thorough user access reviews. These reviews serve as critical safeguards, protecting sensitive data and bolstering defenses against cyber threats. Clarity Security's 10-Minute User Access Reviews improve the efficacy, precision, and overall impact of an organization’s review processes through increasing operational efficiencies, equipping teams with more meaningful results, and serving as a repeatable, scalable method for conducting reviews.
The Clarity team works hand-in-hand with organizations to ensure an easy onboarding process and continued programmatic success. To see for yourself how seamlessly the Clarity platform makes user access reviews, schedule a demo today.