What is Role-based Access Control (RBAC)?

Since the first SaaS application hit the enterprise software market at the turn of the millennium, the industry has absolutely exploded. Today, a wide range of applications populate the market, including highly-specialized as well as comprehensive solutions. This has been a double-edged sword, though, as each new application a company adopts comes with its own collection of potential security risks. 

Would you be surprised to learn that the average company of at least 500 employees uses anywhere from 600 to 1,000 different SaaS applications? The way things are trending, it seems inevitable that more growth leads to more apps. This, in turn, leads to increased security vulnerabilities and a mountain of work for IT teams in terms of identity and access management (IAM). All too often, this leads to a backlog of support tickets, which can overwhelm even the most seasoned IT professionals. 

But it doesn’t have to be that way. The best solution for decreasing support tickets and ensuring both accessibility and security starts with the implementation of RBAC, or role-based access control. When properly executed, often in tandem with other tools and best practices, RBAC helps companies to unlock new levels of efficiency and security. 

Keep reading for an overview of RBAC, including its overall importance, benefits, and challenges, as well as some best practices for RBAC implementation and how self-service and automation can help you maximize the benefits of RBAC.

What Is RBAC, and Why Is It So Important?

Modern businesses face a number of cybersecurity challenges, including external threats as well as potential threats from within the organization. One of the most important aspects of keeping an organization’s data and systems secure and properly functioning is implementing comprehensive RBAC.

Generally speaking, RBAC refers to a methodology for managing not only who can access specific systems and assets, but how and when they should have access as well. True to its name, RBAC involves creating specific protocols based on individual roles within the company. When implemented the right way, RBAC ensures that everyone can access what they need, while minimizing potential vulnerabilities through well-designed controls.

What Are the Benefits of RBAC?

There are at least three key benefits that come with RBAC, as it enables companies to…

1. Ensure that their data, systems, and assets are kept secure: Restricting user access based on the minimum levels of access that are necessary to perform a given role goes a long way toward preventing unauthorized access. The best RBAC solutions are designed to help companies uphold best practices such as the principle of least privilege, which reduces the risk of data breaches and helps companies to mitigate vulnerabilities should a breach or similar event occur. 

2. Simplify and streamline their operations: Without an effective RBAC framework in place, many organizations struggle to keep up with user access requests, which can lead to problematic bottlenecks that hinder the company’s ability to efficiently function. Granting and denying access based on an individual’s specific role makes it easier to onboard new employees more quickly, as they won’t have to wait for their IT team or administrators to review access requests on a system-by-system basis. 

When it comes to onboarding or offboarding employees—or similar activities related to provisioning and de-provisioning—well-implemented RBAC controls can save companies valuable time, while enhancing their overall security posture.

3. Enhance their compliance and audit-readiness: Organizations across a wide range of industries—including healthcare providers, financial institutions, and many others—are required to adhere to certain local, state, and federal regulations related to confidentiality and privacy. On top of required compliance, many companies also pursue certain compliance certifications (SOC 2, for example) to signal to customers that they take the security of their data seriously—which can provide a competitive advantage.

By providing a sound framework for managing and monitoring various aspects of user access, the RBAC model empowers administrators with clear insights into who is accessing a given system, as well as when these systems are being accessed, what changes are being made, and more. 

Ultimately, the implementation of effective RBAC makes it easier for organizations to identity and quickly remedy any unauthorized access or activity, while putting them in a position where adhering to various regulations—including HIPAA, SOX, SOC 2, and ISO 27001—can be done in a more timely and reliable manner.

What Are the Principles of RBAC?

There are three primary principles of RBAC: least privilege, separation of duties, and data abstraction. Understanding the difference between each of these principles is helpful in determining what controls to set, how to prioritize them, and so on. Here’s what you need to know about them:

• The principle of least privilege is based on the idea of providing users with the minimum level of access to different systems, platforms, and data assets that is required for them to successfully perform their role. This helps to eliminate cybersecurity blind spots and unintended vulnerabilities that could result in data breaches or other forms of unauthorized access.

• By contrast, the separation of duties principle primarily involves implementing compliance policies that effectively restrict internal controls so that no user can intentionally misuse systems or otherwise abuse their access.

• Unlike the principles of least privilege and separation of duties, which directly assign permissions to users, the principle of data abstraction instead bases permissions on different roles, grouping similar users together and setting controls accordingly. By basing controls on roles rather than individuals, organizations can effectively “group” permissions while keeping the underlying intricacies of individual permissions and access hidden and, by extension, more difficult to exploit. 

What Are the Three Primary Rules for RBAC?

As organizations implement their chosen RBAC model or models, they are required to adhere to three specific rules. These relate to how individual roles are assigned and authorized, as well as specific permissions authorization. Let’s take a closer look at each of these rules: 

• Role Assignment: An individual user must be assigned a specific and defined role before they can be authorized to exercise specific privileges. Ideally, role-specific permissions will be grouped—and assigned—together, and any user assigned a given role receives the same permissions.

• Role Authorization: An individual user’s role must be appropriately defined and authorized, and users are only permitted to assume a role for which they have been authorized.

• Permission Authorization: Individual users gain authorization to exercise certain privileges based on their role assignment and role authorization (as described above).

Applying these three rules helps to ensure that access to an organization’s IT systems and data are restricted enough to maintain security and compliance—without being so restrictive that users have to submit tickets to gain the access they need in order to perform their role.

How Does RBAC Work?

RBAC works by restricting network, system, and application access based on controls that are in alignment with individuals’ roles and responsibilities within the organization. Ideally, companies implement RBAC solutions that are detailed enough to be effective without being so convoluted or complex that they’re difficult to manage or update. 

As described in the previous section, establishing and managing RBAC consists of three levels of role and access definition. First, users must be assigned a specific role. Then, that role will need to be defined and authorized. Finally, individuals can be assigned and granted access to the right systems and applications at the right time.

Considering that the average organization uses hundreds of different SaaS applications, things can obviously get pretty complicated pretty quickly, underscoring the importance of leveraging the right RBAC solutions. Fortunately, a solution like Lumos makes it easier for companies to implement RBAC by defining user groups, assigning roles, and leveraging automation to reduce IT workloads and streamline onboarding (among other critical processes).

What Are the 4 Models of RBAC?

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines four different RBAC models, while emphasizing that they are typically handled as “levels” within a single model. These are known as flat, hierarchical, constrained, and symmetrical RBAC. Again, the best RBAC solutions and frameworks involve leveraging multiple RBAC or access control models as components of a unified strategy.

• Flat RBAC (Level 1): These controls are based on the three primary rules of RBAC (role assignment, role authorization, and permission authorization). Flat RBAC, while somewhat limited in comparison with subsequent levels of RBAC (below), does allow organizations to assign users to multiple roles (and multiple users to given roles). 

• Hierarchical RBAC (Level 2): Hierarchical RBAC adds more specificity and specialization to the overall RBAC model. For example, a key advantage of hierarchical RBAC is the ability to base roles on seniority levels, so more senior employees can be granted additional privileges as needed. With hierarchical RBAC, it becomes possible to organize roles and permissions into a hierarchy that grants managers additional permissions over their direct reports, for example (in addition to their permissions).

• Constrained RBAC (Level 3): Moving to our third level of controls, constrained RBAC adds a crucial element to the flat and hierarchical models: support for separation of duties. In short, separation of duties is based on the idea of requiring multiple individuals to complete a given task. This is primarily for security purposes, as this approach reduces the opportunity for one individual to “go rogue” and gain unauthorized access.

• Symmetrical RBAC (Level 4): Finally, the fourth level adds another layer to flat, hierarchical, and constrained RBAC. Its objective is to enable IT organizations to not only set and maintain permission assignments, but also to review and update them periodically (or as needed).

What Is an Example of a Simple RBAC Setup?

At its fundamental level, the concept of RBAC is simple enough: it simply aims to ensure that employees have the access they need, while restricting their access to systems or applications that aren’t necessary for their role. 

Let’s look at how a simple role-based access control example can be implemented, in three steps or stages:

1. First, the organization groups employees based on their role. Depending on how the company is structured, they might opt to do this based on department (e.g., sales, marketing, finance, and HR), hierarchies (e.g., supervisors, managers, employees), or a combination of these approaches.

2. The next step is to apply the principle of least privilege—making a list of the systems, applications, and resources required for individuals in each of these roles to effectively perform their responsibilities.

3. Now that every employee has access to what they need, the final step is configuring specific access controls and permissions based on roles and responsibilities. The objective here is to pare down individual access levels, so that employees don’t have access to things they don’t need. This prevents over-provisioning, which in turn helps companies to keep costs low and mitigate the vulnerabilities that can come with unauthorized access.  

What Is the Difference Between RBAC and ABAC?

The primary difference between RBAC and ABAC, or attribute-based access control, centers around the logistics of how each model determines and manages access. Choosing which approach works best for a given company depends on factors such as how the organization is structured, as well as its budget, size, and security requirements. 

Can You Combine RBAC and ABAC?

Rather than thinking purely in terms of RBAC vs ABAC, it’s worth noting that organizations may elect to implement RBAC, ABAC, or both, depending on their needs. Typically, RBAC is better-suited for small and medium organizations, while ABAC tends to work better for many large organizations. 

That’s not to say larger organizations can’t implement RBAC. Many do, often because RBAC is considered less expensive to implement than ABAC. However, the number of different roles within an organization tends to increase with its overall size—and the more roles, the more complicated it becomes to add or manage them.

What Is the Difference Between SBAC and RBAC?

SBAC, or scope-based access control, is best thought of as an extension of RBAC. So, while they are both considered access control mechanisms, each has its own advantages and use cases. While RBAC limits who can access or modify sensitive data, SBAC adds another level by limiting what specific resources can be accessed by users on a role-by-role basis.

What Is the Difference Between RBAC and Permissions?

RBAC and permissions are closely intertwined, as RBAC is simply a methodology for determining, assigning, and managing user permissions and access. In other words, RBAC involves first assigning permissions to specific roles, and then assigning those roles to specific users to limit access to sensitive information without hindering their ability to perform their role. Within RBAC, then, “permissions” simply define the specific actions a user can perform related to given resources and systems.

What Is the Difference Between RBAC and EBAC?

Within an RBAC framework or model, organizations typically combine three different types of controls: continuous, periodic, event-based. Continuous controls include system settings and policies that remain consistent, while periodic controls are revisited on an annual, quarterly, or monthly basis. Finally, event-based controls, often used in tandem with continuous and periodic controls, are in place for ad-hoc occurrences (such as the hiring of a new employee).

EBAC often proves challenging for organizations, as it can be difficult to keep up with each “event” that happens—and to assign or update permissions as needed. Even with a framework or system in place, implementing event-based controls in a timely and secure manner can prove difficult, but it’s made much easier with an RBAC solution that enables self-service, automation, and other advantages.

What Are the Challenges of RBAC?

While establishing a basic RBAC is something most organizations are capable of, as those companies scale and evolve over time, it becomes significantly more complex. More apps, more users, and more roles can create headaches for IT teams, especially if their budget or bandwidth are limited. Essentially, every time a new employee comes on board or changes roles, access controls need to be revisited. The same is true for other events, including cybersecurity incidents or the adoption of (even more) new SaaS apps. 

So, what happens when IT teams can’t keep up with all the changes? Most of the time, it results in over-provisioning—in other words, allocating more resources than needed for services that may not even be used. 

While it might not hurt anything from a functionality standpoint, overprovisioning often results in two less-than-ideal outcomes. First, companies end up allocating more resources (and paying more money) than they need to for unused subscriptions that could instead be de-provisioned or reassigned. On top of those inefficiencies, overprovisioning also increases security vulnerabilities, as users retain access to applications and systems that they simply don’t need in their role.

In addition to overprovisioning, the other key challenge of RBAC relates to its limitations. For example, let’s say a specific employee needs to access a certain application or resource, either once or on a temporary basis. In this case, RBAC’s limitation—that it doesn’t enable administrators to grant one-time permissions, even when an exception is necessary—comes into play.

How Do I Achieve Role-Based Access Control Implementation?

The process of designing and implementing a successful RBAC system consists of 7 key steps or stages:

1. Take Inventory: Create a comprehensive list of the various apps, resources, documents, and tools employees use that require access permissions. As you create this list, make special note of apps, resources, and tools that are no longer being used by the organization, so they can be addressed and unneeded subscriptions can be terminated.

2. Create User Groups Based on Roles: This will save a significant amount of time and energy, as opposed to determining access controls for each individual employee, one at a time. This will also enable administrators to be more responsive when modifications need to be made to a given user group’s permissions. As you create these groups, you should also be thinking about the different levels of access that will be required.

3. Set Role-Specific Permissions: Start by defining and setting permissions for each role. From there, you can assign users to role-based groups to get them up and running.

Once you’ve assigned users to roles and set up their permissions, the work isn’t over. For the best results, you’ll want to perform periodic audits over time, in which you reassess and adjust access controls and permissions as needed. An RBAC solution like Lumos makes it easy to stay on top of any changes that need to be made, maintain security, and be ready for any audit.

What Are Some Role-Based Access Control Best Practices?

There are several best practices organizations can use to guide their RBAC implementation, many of which have already been discussed. These include starting with a careful audit of the organization’s needs (as well as how resources and access are currently allocated and managed), organizing users into groups and hierarchies based on their role(s), and implementing the “least privilege principle”.

Another best practice that can save significant time, energy, and resources while reducing the security risks associated with unauthorized users or access, is to evaluate RBAC solutions and consider how they could transform the organization’s access control policies and processes. 

There are a wide range of RBAC solutions on the marketplace, so you’ll want to choose carefully. Today’s best solutions—like Lumos—empower administrators and IT teams with intuitive tools that can streamline and enhance RBAC through automation and self-service.

Take Your Company’s RBAC to the Next Level with Lumos

Implementing RBAC effectively doesn’t have to be overly complicated. With Lumos, you and your team can…

• Streamline onboarding and offboarding processes through automation.
• Empower employees with functional tools for self-service access requests.
• Automate access reviews, including SOX, SOC2, HIPAA, and ISO27001 reporting.
• And so much more!

Visit our website to learn more about all things RBAC, including how the Lumos platform can transform your organization’s ability to manage costs without compromising the security of business critical systems and resources. There, you can also read customer stories or request a demo to see the platform in action.