The modern workplace is constantly evolving, with organizations of all sizes needing to keep up with the ever-changing landscape. One essential part of ensuring a secure working environment is having the right permission control in place. 

Fine-grained permission control is a powerful tool for organizations to manage access and security within their networks and systems. By using this type of permission control, organizations can set restrictions on what type of data is accessible and by whom, helping to prevent unauthorized access or data breaches. Not only is this critical for keeping sensitive information safe, but it also helps to ensure that everyone in the organization is able to access the resources they need to do their job. 

What is Granular Permission Control?

Granular permission control is the ability to set and manage user access to different areas of a system at a highly specific level. It allows organizations to assign permissions on a per-user or per-role basis, ensuring that individuals only have access to the resources and information they need to perform their tasks. This level of control helps prevent unauthorized access and reduces the risk of data breaches. 

Smart granular permission control leverages native integrations to all critical services, apps, and data repositories and is able to grant permissions in as high or low of granularity as is required. 

For example, a self-hosted and cloud-hosted PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Mongo integration can manage access to clusters, databases, collections, schemas, and more, whereas traditional PAM solutions usually stop at the cluster or database level.

The Risks of Inadequate Permission Control

Without proper permission control, organizations face several risks. Unauthorized individuals may gain access to sensitive data, leading to data breaches and potential legal and financial repercussions. Inadequate permission control can also result in data loss, as users may accidentally delete or modify critical information. Additionally, organizations may experience a lack of accountability and traceability, making it difficult to track and monitor user activities. In summary, the risks of inadequate permission control include data breaches, data loss, and a lack of accountability.

Protecting Sensitive Data with Fine-Grained Permissions

One of the key benefits of fine-grained permission control is its ability to protect sensitive data. By granting access to specific users or roles, organizations can ensure that only those who need to see certain information have the ability to do so. This level of control significantly reduces the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access, providing peace of mind for both organizations and their clients. With fine-grained permissions, organizations can safeguard their sensitive data and maintain the confidentiality and integrity of their information.

Types of Permission Controls

1. Role-based access control. This is one of the most common forms of granular access control that limits access based on the user’s role in an organization. It works by associating each user with a particular role that defines their level of access rights to specific resources.

2. Attribute-based access control. ABAC assigns permissions based on user attributes such as location, time, or other contextual information.

3. Policy-based access control. PBAC is when each type of user is assigned a set of policies that define what they are allowed to do. When they attempt to access a resource, the system checks the policies to see if they are allowed to do so. If the user’s policies allow them to access said resource, they are granted access; if not, access is denied.

4. Resource-based access control. In a resource-based policy, the access control rules are associated with the resource itself, rather than being managed centrally by an authority or user.

Best Practices for Effective Fine-Grained Permission Management

To ensure effective fine-grained permission management, organizations should follow best practices. Firstly, it’s crucial to conduct a thorough audit of user access levels and permissions. This helps identify any inconsistencies or vulnerabilities. Secondly, organizations should adopt a least privilege principle, granting users the minimum access necessary to perform their tasks. 

It’s important to make sure the solution has the capabilities to dynamically grant and revoke permissions to all the critical resources and services to which it governs access. In addition, the solution should strive to offer robust and dynamic IFTTT scenarios, by leveraging context about on-call shifts, IdP groups, managers, work hours, and more to make sure Just-in-Time access is refined to the specific business use case.  

When looking for a solution, it’s important it is also able to integrate directly with the services and the changing of the permissions at the integration level itself and speak the policy language of each one, bringing a unified privilege control plane to the admin, with workflows and audit capabilities on top. Lastly, regularly training employees on data security practices will further enhance the effectiveness of fine-grained permission management. 

About Apono

Apono is a granular permission control solution that offers fine-grained access policies to cloud assets. Apono integrates directly with the specific service or resource type. This allows us to  change the permissions at the resource level itself, for example a specific collection or table in your data repository instead of the entire cluster. Our solution allows for control of specific roles and permissions of each resource type and service from one central tool, bringing a unified privilege control plane to the admin, with workflows and audit capabilities on top. Try us free!

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Apono authored by Rom Carmel. Read the original post at: https://www.apono.io/blog/why-do-orgs-need-granular-permission-control/