Role-Based Access Control Best Practices
Learn how properly-implemented RBAC solutions can streamline operations, reduce costs, lighten the IT team’s workload, and enhance security.
More apps, more problems? As modern organizations evolve and scale with time, their growth often comes with added challenges. Think about it: with the average employee using 100 different apps, challenges related to not only efficiency but security and compliance are bound to emerge. And the faster the growth, the more difficult it becomes to effectively configure, manage, and monitor each employee’s permissions.
Sure, you could grant every employee unlimited or unchecked access to any app, system, network, or resource, but that’s not something anyone in IT would ever advise. It’s too expensive, and it brings about way too many security risks.
At the other end of the spectrum, you could manage (or micro-manage) access on an employee-by-employee and app-by-app basis. This, too, would be an inefficient and unnecessarily complicated endeavor.
Instead, today’s companies are increasingly discovering the importance of RBAC, or role-based access control. True to its name, RBAC primarily involves setting specific access controls on a role-by-role basis, establishing an ideal middle ground between the much less practical “unlimited access for everyone” and “hyper-specific access for each employee” extremes.
Implementing an effective role-based access control framework is an essential step for any growing organization. But what are some of the key role-based access control advantages and disadvantages, and what are the best practices when working with permissions? In this article we’ll explore those points as well, so keep reading for an overview of RBAC and how to get it right for your organization.
What Is Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) Used For?
RBAC (and RBAC solutions) are primarily used to define and manage how employees in different parts of the organization use various apps. Leveraging the right RBAC solutions makes this a much more efficient process, one capable of streamlining operations and reducing IT workload (and costs) without compromising either security or productivity.
How Does RBAC Work, and What Are the Advantages of RBAC?
A major element of RBAC’s appeal is its relative simplicity and efficiency. It works by first categorizing users into functional groups—or roles—and then applying specific permissions based on user roles. While no two organizations’ RBAC implementation will be identical, they also have plenty in common, including their basic principles, rules, and access control models (all which we’ll discuss shortly).
Just understanding why role-based access control is important isn’t enough—companies must also know how to implement RBAC best practices and evaluate RBAC solutions.
That being said, RBAC doesn’t have to be overly complicated to deliver positive outcomes. For example, leveraging the right RBAC model (and RBAC solution) can help organizations to save a tremendous amount of time, lighten their IT workload, and help them prepare for compliance-based audits.
What’s more, with a solid RBAC foundation in place, companies can experience a wide range of benefits over time. These include the ability to make timely modifications when individual users change roles, new users come onboard (or leave the organization), and so on.
Are There Any Role-Based Access Control Disadvantages?
Yes, there can be! What many organizations discover is that RBAC alone is not wholly effective, despite the benefits. One of the biggest drawbacks of RBAC relates to overprovisioning. For a majority of organizations, the first step toward reducing the number of IT tickets a company has to deal with (especially those related to configuring and managing user access) is to auto-assign apps for employees who join (or leave) the organization—or those who change roles.
Auto-assigning might save time in the short run, but it can also lead to overprovisioning, which increases costs and compromises security. At Lumos, we’ve found that as many as two-thirds (67%) of IT teams overprovision, despite being concerned about security. Inevitably, many discover the benefits of RBAC alone can be limited, especially as employees’ roles extend beyond the “pre-set” roles (including access and permissions) defined by their RBAC framework.
The best way to reduce the IT team’s workload—while mitigating risks of overprovisioning—is to leverage RBAC solutions that enable business leaders to enable self-service access requests. By combining the right RBAC solution with well-designed self-service workflows for requesting app access, however, companies can solve these challenges.
- Learn more by downloading our role-based access control best practices PDF.
RBAC vs ABAC: What’s the Difference, and Which Should You Use?
Like RBAC, ABAC (or attribute-based access control) is another common method for configuring how employees can access resources. The primary difference between the two is in the details of how they determine access and permissions.
As described above, RBAC primarily assigns permissions based on an individual employee’s role within the organization. ABAC, by contrast, instead bases permissions on attributes related to the subject or user, resources or objects, actions, or environment.
Another common explanation for the difference between RBAC and ABAC is that RBAC primarily impacts what individual users can do, while ABAC determines what individual users can see.
So, which should you use? Considering the distinct advantages of each, the most effective approach will often include elements of both—along with robust RBAC solutions that can also enable self-service for access requests, workflow automation, and more.
What Are the Key Principles, Rules, and RBAC Models?
When discussing best practices or evaluating solutions related to role-based access control, it’s important to be familiar with the different types of principles, rules, and models of RBAC. Let’s briefly explore each.
What Are the Principles of RBAC?
There are three fundamental principles related to RBAC: least privilege, separation of duties, and data abstraction.
- Least Privilege: Says that individual users (or those within a given role) should only have access to essential apps, services, and resources. This helps with reducing the costs and security risks associated with overprovisioning and similar practices.
- Separation of Duties: Involves reducing security risk through the prevention of unauthorized access, fraudulent activity, or simple human error. Setting restrictive internal controls helps to maintain security without compromising users’ ability to access what they need.
- Data Abstraction: Makes it easier to manage access and permissions on a role-by-role basis without revealing data that users don’t need to see. Along with the principles of least privilege and separation of duties, data abstraction is an important security protocol integrated into an organization’s RBAC system.
What Are the Three Primary Rules for RBAC?
While every company’s RBAC strategy is going to be unique, virtually every role-based control example adheres to three guiding rules: role assignment, role authorization, and permission authorization. They’re not terribly difficult to understand:
- Role Assignment: Individual users are assigned to one (or multiple) roles.
- Role Authorization: App access and permissions are assigned (based on those user roles).
- Permission Authorization: Once assigned to one or more specific roles, users are authorized to access specific apps and resources.
What Are the 4 Models of RBAC Implementation?
There are four commonly-used implementation models for RBAC and RBAC solutions: flat, hierarchical, constrained, and symmetrical. These models are best leveraged in tandem with each other, as they represent increasing levels of functional complexity.
- Flat RBAC: Applies the three primary rules for RBAC (see above).
- Hierarchical RBAC: Add a layer of complexity by integrating access control and permissions based on hierarchical organization.
- Constrained RBAC: Supports separation of duties (in addition to the functions of flat and hierarchical RBAC.
- Symmetrical RBAC: Integrates one final level of complexity by providing the capability to periodically review and adjust user- and role-based permissions over time.
What Are the Keys to Successful Role-Based Access Control Implementation?
When it comes to how to properly implement RBAC, keys to success include aligning RBAC systems with business objectives, defining specific roles and permissions, and utilizing the right RBAC solution(s). Consider the following five user roles and permissions best practices:
1. Consider Your Objectives and Priorities
Effective RBAC strategies are closely aligned with an organization’s goals and priorities, including challenges they hope to overcome (such as ensuring user access without resorting to overprovisioning). Before developing an RBAC strategy in earnest, start by answering questions that can inform your approach, like:
- Security: Are there security vulnerabilities that can be mitigated with stronger access controls? If so, what are they?
- Workflows: How efficient are your current processes for giving employees access to different resources? Could workflows be simplified without compromising utility or security?
- Auditing: How much visibility do you currently have into how users are accessing different resources? Do you consider your organization “audit-ready,” or is maintaining compliance a challenge?
- Scalability: Based on how user roles and permissions are currently being set and configured, is your organization ready to scale?
- Automation: To what extent do you currently employ automation and self-service for access requests, and how could these best practices be extended for further benefit?
2. Take Inventory of Existing Apps and Systems
Before you can develop an effective RBAC framework that’s right for your organization, it’s important to evaluate its current state related to both its systems and workforce.
To take an inventory of your apps and systems, start by listing every app, resource, or service that requires access control. This should include broad services like email, database access, and file servers, as well as individual apps used by employees in specific roles or departments. You can ensure your list is complete by soliciting input from department leaders and inquiring with the finance department to determine apps the organization is currently paying for (whether used or not).
3. Define Specific Roles and Permissions
Once you have generally categorized employees into role-based groupings, you’re ready to get into the real “meat” of RBAC—determining specific, role-based access control and permissions.
Evaluate your workforce by grouping them into role-based categories. The idea here is that employees within a given role will generally require the same types (and level) of access to a shared collection of apps.
Grouping—and defining—employees based on their role provides the foundation for effective RBAC implementation, and taking a top-down approach generally works best. Once you have defined roles and responsibilities, you can translate those ideas into specific role-based controls.
Since roles and responsibilities can be expected to evolve over time, it’s also important to establish a governance framework—in other words, a decision-making body capable of maintaining or updating user roles. This also includes articulating specific access control policies and upholding them throughout the organization. These policies may include specific risk management strategies, performance measures, processes for evaluating roles and permissions, and so on.
The good news is that once you’ve constructed a role-based access control policy template that works for your company, you won’t have to reinvent the wheel every time a user is added, removed, or changes roles. You can simply tweak existing policies and permissions to make quick changes to the overall strategy.
4. Assign People and Roles
Now that you’ve considered your objectives, taken inventory of your systems and workforce, and outlined different roles and permissions requirements throughout your organization, you’re ready to assign people to roles and set access permissions. In other words, it’s time to (officially) begin implementing RBAC.
From a logistic or practical perspective, it often makes sense for larger organizations to work in stages. For example, they may start with a small number of users—maybe one specific, role-based group of employees—so they can make any necessary changes before a more widespread implementation. As things develop, solicit plenty of feedback and be sure to follow through with any mission-critical changes before proceeding.
This approach ultimately minimizes disruption and mitigates risk in a lower-stakes environment than if you were to implement RBAC all at once, an approach for which “risky” and “difficult” may actually be understatements.
5. Evaluate RBAC Solutions and Features
The final piece of the RBAC puzzle—and our fifth and final recommendation—is to evaluate RBAC solutions carefully, in order to find the right mix of functionality and affordability.
Comparing different solutions isn’t always an apples-to-apples type comparison, as popular solutions range from being fairly simple to highly complex. That’s why it’s important to consider your overall objectives and priorities before you start comparing different solutions’ features and advantages. This enables you to focus on the features and functions that matter most, and to prioritize those as you narrow down your list of potential solutions.
What Are the Three Main Components of a Role-Based Access Control Solution?
First, the RBAC solution your organization chooses should accommodate users, roles, and permissions—and make it easy to define, manage, and update the apps and systems available to different user groups.
Next, it should be as comprehensive as possible. Rather than trying to get several different solutions to work nicely together (an approach that is challenging in terms of time, energy, money, and security), adopting a more robust solution—like Lumos—won’t just make your IT pros’ jobs easier today, it will also scale with the organization while enabling on-the-fly modifications.
Finally, if you really want to take RBAC to the next level and unlock new levels of security and efficiency, it’s worth seeking out a solution (like Lumos) that enables automation and self-service. Adopting such a solution in tandem with a well-developed RBAC framework is the best way to reduce IT tickets without slowing down access requests, approvals, and updates.
Learn More About Lumos and RBAC
To learn more about the positive impact of self-service and automation on RBAC, check out our downloadable RBAC guide. Or, if you’re ready to see what implementation might look like for your organization, it only takes a moment to schedule a free live demo with our team.
