What is Entitlement Management?

What is Entitlement Management?

Entitlement Management in Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) refers to the process of controlling, tracking, and governing the access rights (entitlements) that users have to systems, applications, and data within an organization. It ensures that users only have the access necessary to perform their job functions and prevents over-provisioning, unauthorized access, and security risks.

Key Concepts in Entitlement Management

Entitlements

These are the specific permissions or privileges granted to a user, application, or system to access a resource. Examples include read/write access to a shared folder, admin rights on a server, and or access to a financial application.

Access Policies

Rules that define who can have specific entitlements and under what conditions. For example, only employees in the Finance department can access the payroll system or temporary contractors may only have limited access to specific systems for a defined duration.

Principle of Least Privilege

This governs the practice of granting users, devices, and processes only the minimum access or permissions required to perform their tasks. The benefits of the principle include reducing the attack surface and mitigating the potential impact of security breaches or unauthorized access to sensitive data.

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

Helps restrict users’ access to resources based on the roles assigned to them within an organization. Rather than assigning permissions to individual users, permissions are grouped by role, and users are assigned to roles that determine what actions they can perform and which resources they can access within an IT infrastructure. For example, a “Sales Manager” role might include access to CRM tools, customer data, and reporting dashboards.

Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC)

With this method, access control decisions are based on attributes like user location, job title, or department. For example, a user in the “HR” department and “Full-Time Employee” category can access the HR portal.

The Functions of Entitlement Management

A modern IGA solution facilitates these Entitlement Management functions:

Request and Approval

Users can request entitlements through a self-service portal. This platform also supports automated workflows for managing and approving access requests that frequently involve multiple levels of approval. Approvals are routed to managers or resource owners based on applicable policies.

User Provisioning and De-provisioning

Automatically grants user access rights based on their roles and job functions when they join the organization or change roles. Automated de-provisioning helps enforce the principle of least privilege by automatically revoking access rights when users leave the organization or no longer need certain privileges.

Access Reviews and Certification

Periodic reviews are conducted to verify that users access rights align with their current roles and they still need the entitlements they were granted. Compliance checks are conducted as part of scheduled audits to ensure ongoing adherence to policies and regulatory requirements.

Entitlement Catalog

A centralized repository of all available entitlements across systems, with descriptions and associated roles/policies.

Segregation of Duties (SoD) Checks

Prevents access conflicts by ensuring users don’t have entitlements that create unacceptable risks (e.g., approving and processing the same financial transaction).

Audit and Reporting

Records user activities, access requests, and changes to access rights. It also generates reports that demonstrate compliance with internal policies and external regulations.

Organizations can coordinate these functions to work together to streamline permissions and access rights, maintain security and compliance, and ensure users only have access to resources necessary to do their work.

Benefits of Entitlement Management

Improved Security

Entitlement Management reduces the risk of over-privileged accounts and insider threats and ensures access is promptly revoked when users no longer need it.

Easier Regulatory Compliance

Enforces and documents appropriate access controls to help organizations meet requirements for regulations like SOX, GDPR, and HIPAA.

Better Operational Efficiency

The automation of entitlement provisioning and deprovisioning reduces manual effort and the chances of human error.

Reduced Risk

Enforces consistent access policies to minimize unauthorized access.

Enhanced Visibility

Provides detailed insights into who has access to what resources and why.

Where to Learn More and Get Help

Effective Entitlement Management is essential to control and monitor access to an organization’s sensitive data and is a critical factor in mitigating the risk of data breaches. For security teams, compliance officers, and IT executives, choosing the right system enables their organizations to meet new and ongoing Entitlement Management challenges.

Omada Identity Cloud helps organizations deploy a configurable, scalable system that automates the Entitlement Management process and makes it easy to demonstrate compliance and harden organizational security. Get a demo.