Your business must keep it contained, whether it’s sensitive employee information, proprietary trade secrets, or audience data. This is essential for safeguarding against cyber thefts and meeting compliance mandates.
Access control enables this by strengthening cybersecurity through physical and virtual access protections. These include authentication, authorization, logging and monitoring, and adherence (enforcement) policies.
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Restricting Access to Sensitive Data
A core component of cybersecurity, access control is a set of procedures and policies that limit access to sensitive data and systems. It includes authentication, authorization, and access management processes that allow only authenticated and authorized users to view specific files, applications, networks, or data, whether on-premises or in the cloud.
The first step in the access control process involves authenticating a user’s identity. This can be accomplished in several ways, including validating personal identification documents, verifying the authenticity of a website using a digital certificate, or checking login credentials against stored information. Once a user is authenticated, they can be granted permission to access the resource based on their organizational role. For example, human resources staff should be able to access employee records but should not have access to highly confidential company data or systems.
This process is critical for protecting your business’s sensitive data and reducing the risk of costly breaches. It also helps to ensure that employees can only see the information they need to do their jobs and that no one else can view or modify it. In addition, strict access control can help your business comply with various industry standards and regulations.
Reducing the Risk of Data Loss
When protecting sensitive data, access control in cybersecurity is one of the best measures you can take. This technology helps to minimize risk by limiting who has access to what information, both physically and digitally. It also ensures that your organization is not exposing itself to costly breaches and legal implications.
When someone logs into your company’s network, an access control system will evaluate their login credentials and determine if they can view the information they want. Passwords, pins, security tokens, and biometric scans are all examples of authenticating mechanisms that can be used to verify identity. Multifactor authentication provides an extra layer of security by requiring users to provide more than one verification method.
Once the user is verified, an access control policy will grant them specific permissions to view the information. For example, a bank employee who has been granted access to see individual customer accounts will be able to view that information. However, a fund manager will only be able to view data regarding the overall financial holdings of the bank.
This is important because hackers often target employees to gain access to the system and view critical data. All data breaches are caused by stolen or compromised credentials. Having strict access controls in place is the best way to limit the potential of these attacks.
Monitoring Access to Sensitive Data
The best way to prevent sensitive data breaches is to track who has access to what. However, this is not easy because sensitive data is often dispersed across multiple platforms, applications, and integrations. As a result, many organizations have yet to see where their data is or who has access to it.
With centralized monitoring, you can gain visibility and insight into your data to ensure that only authorized users access the information they are supposed to see. This approach also allows you to detect potential issues more quickly and efficiently.
A comprehensive security monitoring solution will allow you to capture all access activity to your sensitive data automatically. With this information at your fingertips, you can enforce policy definitions and monitor and alert on policy violations, outliers, and anomalies. By leveraging this information, you can strengthen your compliance and reduce the risk of data leakage and misuse of personal sensitive information.
While some might think access control is inconvenient or cumbersome, it is critical to any company’s security architecture. Keeping data accessible to only those who are supposed to have it protects against breaches from hacking or accidental employee missteps, and it helps companies stay compliant with regulations.
Ensuring Compliance
Access control refers to tools and protocols that limit the scope of users’ access to physical and logical systems. It prevents hackers from stealing confidential information, intellectual property, and more by forcing users to use security protocols before seeing sensitive data. A subway turnstile only allows verified people to enter; for example, a bank employee must log in with a password before accessing customer and company financial records.
Several access control models, including role-based access control (RBAC), determine privileges by grouping subjects (payroll specialists or HR directors) rather than individuals. Other models require something a user knows (like a password), something a person has (a key card, ID badge, or fingerprint scanner), and something a person is (face recognition or voice authentication).
Regardless of the model used, strong authentication is essential. This includes the use of multiple-factor authentication methods and the implementation of robust password policies. It is also necessary to regularly review and update access rights based on changing roles, job responsibilities, and compliance requirements. This includes promptly revoking access for terminated employees or those whose responsibilities have changed. Finally, regular auditing and monitoring can help identify suspicious activity and potential breaches.
Barry Lachey is a Professional Editor at Zobuz. Previously He has also worked for Moxly Sports and Network Resources “Joe Joe.” He is a graduate of the Kings College at the University of Thames Valley London. You can reach Barry via email or by phone.
