Why Deprovisioning Access Is So Important In Cybersecurity

Access deprovisioning is the process of removing users’ access rights to an organization’s applications and systems when they are no longer needed, usually when an employee leaves a company or changes their role. By deprovisioning user accounts, companies work to prevent data exposure and remove orphaned accounts that could be used by hackers and cyber criminals to easily gather an organization’s data and invade their network.

Access Provisioning and Deprovisioning Based on Roles

When thinking of access provisioning and deprovisioning policies, we typically start with roles. Roles could be assigned based on titles like sales representative, finance manager, programmer, IT systems administrator, or more.

In organizations that have lots of different people in different roles, it can be increasingly complex to assign and remove access rights manually, which can lead to errors. Common errors may include lost productivity from under-provisioning someone, or over-provisioning access, so that when it is no longer needed (such as when they leave the organization) it presents a security risk.

Instituting role-based access control (RBAC) is a good way that organizations can meet compliance and improve security while removing much of the manual lift needed to provision access one by one.

Importance of Deprovisioning in IGA

RBAC is a fundamental part of Identity lifecycle management (ILM). ILM is a broader framework that manages the entire lifecycle of a user’s digital identity within an organization, including promptly provisioning and deprovisioning identities.

ILM is a critical component of Identity Governance and Administration (IGA). IGA focuses on managing digital identities and access rights, ensuring that these are handled in a secure, compliant, and efficient manner. Deprovisioning is an important step within IGA, ensuring that no one maintains access to critical data that they shouldn’t have.

Creating a Process for Deprovisioning

The best practice for deprovisioning is to use an IGA solution to automatically provision and deprovision access whenever events throughout the identity lifecycle occur. This could be someone joining an organization, moving roles, or leaving the organization altogether. These processes are initiated whenever someone is entered into an authoritative source (i.e., an HR system), their identity data is changed (i.e., when they change job titles), or when they are marked as inactive in the system.

When working to offboard employees, defining a standard process for deprovisioning is also critical to avoid security risks and maintain compliance with regulatory or audit requirements.

Create Timelines

Third-party contractors are onboarded by default with a set timeline. This works to ensure that security and risk managers do not need to remember to remove access from temporary workers on the exact date their contracts expire. They can also easily extend these access rights if needed.

Set a Deprovisioning Policy

For the entire workforce, setting a policy that deprovisions access when an identity record is no longer delivered by the source system can help reduce risk and uncertainty. This type of event happens if the data record of an identity is deleted, or when a record is marked as ‘not active.’

Establish a Transfer Ownership Process

No matter the scenario, whenever an identity is terminated, all the correlated accounts are disabled, access is revoked, and a transfer ownership process begins to make sure that there are no productivity gaps. IGA helps in this deprovisioning process by identifying which accounts of deprovisioned users need to be reassigned or deleted.

The Risks of Neglecting Deprovisioning

Neglecting deprovisioning can have some serious risks for organizations, including:

1. Security risks, such as insider threats, credential theft, and privileged access abuse
2. Compliance risks like regulatory violations and audit failures
3. Operational risks of resource drain and system performance issues due to unused accounts cluttering systems
4. Reputational damage from data breaches
5. Interruption of operations by former employees and contractors, whether intentionally or unintentionally

Common Triggers to Revoke Access Permissions

1. Someone removes their own direct access, either as part of a certification campaign or self-identifying that they no longer need access to a business resource
2. A manager removes access for one of their direct reports
3. A system or application owner removes access that someone has to the system or application they own
4. Previously granted access rights meets a preset expiration date, such as when a third-party workers’ contract expires
5. A data or domain administrator determines to remove direct access of anyone

Best Practices for Access Deprovisioning

During the process of access revocation, there are a few best practices to follow, to ensure that deprovisioning occurs smoothly:

1. Establish Clear Policies and Procedures

It’s important that your organization have well-documented policies and procedures for deprovisioning, including clear roles and responsibilities that require specific access to data.

2. Automate Wherever Possible

Trying to manually deprovision and monitor user access permissions is time consuming and prone to human errors. Whenever possible, all of the identity and access provisioning lifecycle should be automated to reduce errors and improve efficiency.

3. Regularly Audit Access Rights

Organizations must regularly conduct periodic access reviews to identify and remove unnecessary privileges, which IGA solutions can help with.

Conclusion

Access deprovisioning is fundamental to safeguarding sensitive data and maintaining compliance within organizations, and automated IGA solutions are the only way to ensure that user deprovisioning is free from human errors and efficient.

Omada has developed an identity governance framework based on 20+ years of experience that standardizes key processes every organization should implement as part of their IGA programs. Omada IdentityPROCESS+ defines several ways that customers can implement deprovisioning policies and processes to ensure that whenever the unfortunate reality of workforce turnover happens, access can be quickly deprovisioned without any lags in productivity.