With more companies shifting their data to their digital counterparts in the past decade, the risks of data breaches have grown exponentially. In most data breaches, the weakest link is the human element. Therefore, it is crucial to strengthen your policies, practices, and protocols of access management.
Organizations often limit their data and only grant access to a relevant segment within the department. For example, there is no need for sharing data of outbound sales with IT support. Similarly, better management of data within and across departments solidifies data security. Learn more about the problem and the ways it can be managed in this blog.
What is Data Breach?
To grasp the importance of access management in the workplace investigation process, it is best to go through a quick 101 of what a data breach is. The name is very self-descriptive as a data breach is the data stolen from an organization’s system without the knowledge of the people responsible. The stolen data could be of the whole company, a specific department, or a segment of any of it.
A data breach could be the result of a number of poor practices. It may have been caused by stolen employee credentials, phishing, and employee misuse (mistakenly or intentionally). Businesses often have awareness training on phishing and not sharing login credentials with anyone. They also push software updates on company-owned devices to cover known vulnerabilities and hacks.
With these aspects out of the way, businesses can bridge other security gaps of their security with access management.
What is Access Management?
Access management is a necessary element of cybersecurity that businesses use for three reasons: authentication, authorization, and accounting. Access management restricts the use of certain data to specific people who have the authorization. On top of that, the system also keeps records of who accessed what data, for what purpose, and at what time. Access management may sound like a straightforward process. However, it is a complex process that presents organizations with many challenges in implementation.
On a broader scale, access management comes under identity and access management tools. IAM (identity and access management) verifies, controls, and manages a user’s access to data and resources. Businesses may use multiple ways of access management at different levels based on their security policy and needs.
Role of Poor Access Management in Cyberattacks
Poor access management policies are often the weakest link in security. Learning how they lead to cyberattacks can give companies insights into how important it is to strengthen their access management policies. For starters, many instances of employee fraud are the result of poor access management.
Without a strong access management policy, businesses do not stress enough the importance of setting strong passwords for accessing files. Weak passwords are easy to guess which leads to unauthorized access to the system. Another problem is of multiple people having access may create internal issues among departments within organizations.
Poor access management leaves complex systems and the cloud infrastructure of a company vulnerable. The vulnerabilities may appear from both inside and outside the system. With all this invaluable data, organizations need to create a more secure environment that takes different factors into consideration.
Role of Better Access Management in Improving Cybersecurity
With the creation and implementation of better access management policies alone, businesses can cover multiple areas of vulnerability and take out minimizes the chances of human intervention. For example, credential theft can be significantly lowered. Credential theft is one of the favorite ways for hackers to gain access. Setting strong credentials that need to be changed by an employee after set intervals make passwords a wall against unauthorized access.
A solid access management system can identify attempts to access unauthorized data. The system may block the ID, log out the user, and notify the cybersecurity team of the attempts made. Stopping such attempts can save organizations from major damage from hackers.
Lastly, strong access management policies and a system created for the purpose helps organizations detect employee fraud. This can save businesses from inside breaches. So, there are many reasons for companies to create such systems.
Access management plays a vital role in enhancing cybersecurity. It involves managing and controlling the access of users and devices to network resources, applications, and data. By limiting the number of users who have access to sensitive information, access management reduces the attack surface and prevents unauthorized access by outsiders or unauthorized insiders.
Better access management helps organizations improve their overall security posture by ensuring that only authorized individuals or entities have access to sensitive data. This reduces the risk of data breaches, which can have severe consequences for businesses, such as loss of reputation, financial losses, and legal liabilities. In addition, access management enables organizations to monitor user activity and identify potential security threats, allowing them to take timely action to prevent attacks.
Moreover, access management is essential for compliance with regulations and industry standards. Many regulations require organizations to control and monitor user access to sensitive data, and failure to comply can result in hefty fines and legal penalties. By implementing access management policies and procedures, organizations can demonstrate compliance and avoid legal liabilities.
Better access management also improves productivity and operational efficiency. By providing users with appropriate access levels, organizations can ensure that employees have the access they need to perform their jobs effectively while preventing unnecessary access to sensitive data. This helps to reduce the risk of human error and improve overall productivity, enabling organizations to achieve their business objectives more efficiently.
In conclusion, better access management is crucial for improving cybersecurity. It reduces the attack surface, enhances overall security posture, ensures compliance with regulations and industry standards, improves productivity and operational efficiency, and helps organizations achieve their business objectives. By implementing access management policies and procedures, organizations can better protect their sensitive data and mitigate the risks of cyber attacks.
Conclusion
Managing access at different levels allows businesses to safeguard their data and resources from unwanted eyes and breaches. Strong access management policies strengthen data security from both inside and outside threats. Therefore, more organizations have a system in place that requires employees to sign up with strong credentials and grants limited access to the company data.