After polling many of our clients, we put together this list of the top 6 most-seen permissions management use cases. In addition, we show how a permissions management solution benefits each case.

1. JIT Provisioning in Permissions Management

JIT provisioning automates the process of generating and updating user accounts. Instead of proactive account creation, user accounts come into play when users initiate their first login attempts to applications, provided they have the necessary authorization. 

2. Automated Least-Privilege Access

Automating the enforcement of least-privilege access brings numerous advantages to companies, such as heightened security, heightened operational efficiency, and improved compliance.

By automating the process of granting and revoking access, organizations can drastically diminish the risk of unauthorized privileges, ensuring that employees possess only the resources essential for their specific roles. This minimizes the attack surface and reduces the potential consequences of security incidents.

Additionally, automation eliminates the necessity for laborious manual procedures, enabling employees to swiftly acquire the necessary access. By streamlining the processes of access requests, approvals, and provisioning, companies can enhance operational efficiency while alleviating the administrative workload on IT and security teams.

3. Incident Management via ChatOps

ChatOps bridges the gap between human interaction and automated processes, resulting in a powerful tool that empowers modern teams. It’s a game-changer in DevOps and beyond, boosting efficiency, productivity, and collaboration. When used for just-in-time access to sensitive resources, it becomes even more of a necessity for busy dev teams.  

The connection between effective communication and successful incident management is no mystery. Teams that excel in communication and collaboration not only address incidents more swiftly but also maintain satisfaction among both internal teams and external users. 

Moreover, their adeptness in postmortems aids in pinpointing underlying issues and proactively preventing future incidents. It’s no wonder that ChatOps has seamlessly integrated into the processes of numerous incident management teams.

4. Automated Self-Service Access Requests 

In legacy environments, data or resource access requests often happen in emails, phone calls, or in an IT service management ticketing system. In a modern identity implementation, an  Identity Management (IDM) tool or process that allows self-service access requests makes security and compliance easier through consistent enforcement and tracking of digital identities across the IT ecosystem.

5. Break-glass Scenarios

When implementing an access management solution such as a Privileged Access Management (PAM) tool, businesses frequently find the need for a contingency access capability. This ensures that users can still access their systems in emergencies, particularly when the deployed PAM tool is unavailable for regular access provisioning.

6. Complying with Regulations for Data Access Control

In the contemporary global business landscape, enterprises encounter formidable challenges such as swiftly evolving technology, the imperative of digital transformation, and a growing array of industry-specific regulations pertaining to data security and privacy. Non-compliance with these regulations may result in substantial fines, penalties, and erosion of customer trust.

Comply with SOX, SOC2, ISO27001, and other relevant standards by verifying and demonstrating that solely authorized individuals access the minimal necessary sensitive data.

A survey of 1,000 IT operations, DevOps, site reliability engineering (SRE) and platform engineering professionals in the U.S. conducted by Transposit, a provider of an incident management platform, found more than two-thirds (67%) have seen an increase in the frequency of service incidents that have affected their customers over the past 12 months.

Announced at the 2023 Kubecon + CloudNative conference in Chicago, the survey found 62% of respondents have also seen an increase in the amount of time it takes to resolve incidents over the course of the last year, with 80% reporting it takes up to six hours on average to resolve incidents from the first alert to mitigating the issue.

Before we dive into the ways that automated provisioning helps teams resolve more issues at a faster rate, let’s take a look at some of the terms we’ll be using in this article.

What is ChatOps?

ChatOps is like a team collaboration tool on steroids. It’s a concept that brings together communication and collaboration within a team’s workflow by integrating them into a chat platform or a messaging tool. Instead of switching between different tools and interfaces, team members can execute commands, monitor systems, and collaborate on tasks directly within the chat platform.      

What is Incident Management and Response?

Security incident management is the process of identifying, managing, recording and analyzing security threats or incidents in real-time. It seeks to give a robust and comprehensive view of any security issues within an IT infrastructure.

Incident response (IR) is the process by which an organization handles a data breach or cyberattack. It is an effort to quickly identify an attack, minimize its effects, contain damage, and remediate the cause to reduce the risk of future incidents.

ChatOps and Incident Management

The connection between effective communication and successful incident management is no mystery. Teams that excel in communication and collaboration not only address incidents more swiftly but also maintain satisfaction among both internal teams and external users. 

Moreover, their adeptness in postmortems aids in pinpointing underlying issues and proactively preventing future incidents. It’s no wonder that ChatOps has seamlessly integrated into the processes of numerous incident management teams.

What is Just-in-time Access? 

Just-in-time permission management, also known as JIT or Just-in-time access, is a cybersecurity approach rooted in the principle of least privilege. It grants users access to assets only when necessary and within a limited timeframe. Once the allotted time expires, users automatically lose access to resources, including applications and systems.

By employing JIT methodology to restrict the timeframe of user access rights, the likelihood of attackers infiltrating your cloud security perimeter is significantly reduced. This becomes crucial as cloud-based breaches accounted for 45% of incidents in 2022, highlighting the growing presence of applications, services, users, and resources in the cloud. Just-in-time permission management (JIT) emerges as an essential strategy in this context.

While traditional Privileged Access Management (PAM) processes, such as session management, prove effective for on-premises environments, JIT shines in regulating access across cloud resources.   

How Does Provisioning Just-in-Time Access Work?

JIT provisioning automates the process of generating and updating user accounts. IT administrators are relieved from the manual task of individually creating accounts across various applications, all thanks to JIT provisioning. Instead of proactive account creation, user accounts come into existence when users initiate their first login attempts to applications, provided they have the necessary authorization. 

The concept of provisioning Just-in-Time access comes into play specifically when users log in to an application through a third-party identity provider. By doing so, JIT provisioning removes the necessity of manual user provisioning or account creation, resulting in significant savings of both effort and time.

How Does ChatOps Relate to Provisioning Just-in-Time Access?

ChatOps bridges the gap between human interaction and automated processes, resulting in a powerful tool that empowers modern teams. It’s a game-changer in DevOps and beyond, boosting efficiency, productivity, and collaboration. When used for just-in-time access to sensitive resources, it becomes even more of a necessity for busy dev teams.  

Think of it as a way to streamline and automate operational tasks by leveraging the power of chat and collaboration tools. It enhances transparency, efficiency, and collaboration among team members, making it easier to manage and respond to incidents, deploy updates, and perform various operations—all from within a chat interface. It’s like having a virtual team command center right in your chat room! 

Provisioning Just-in-Time Access via ChatOps

With Apono, it’s super simple to ask for and be granted access right inside of Slack. Check out the video here. 

Automating the enforcement of least-privilege access brings numerous advantages to companies, encompassing heightened security, heightened operational efficiency, and improved compliance.

By automating the process of granting and revoking access, organizations can drastically diminish the risk of unauthorized privileges, ensuring that employees possess only the resources essential for their specific roles. This minimizes the attack surface and reduces the potential consequences of security incidents.

Additionally, automation eliminates the necessity for laborious manual procedures, enabling employees to swiftly acquire the necessary access. By streamlining the processes of access requests, approvals, and provisioning, companies can enhance operational efficiency while alleviating the administrative workload on IT and security teams.

Problems with Manual Provisioning

In many organizations, IT and security teams contend with constrained resources and a backlog of responsibilities. Assigning individuals to manually evaluate temporary elevation requests is not the most efficient allocation of skilled resources and can lead to natural delays. Coupled with the stress and frustration experienced by requestors justifying their needs and waiting for permissions, this results in a recurrent, stressful situation that does not align with business requirements.

Achieving Least-Privilege Access in the Cloud

A centralized automated system for requesting and granting permissions, monitoring their utilization, and ultimately revoking privileges can be immensely helpful. An automated Just-In-Time (JIT) mechanism can bridge gaps created by manual processes and reduce friction and administrative overhead. Automated monitoring and auditing of JIT access prove valuable in verifying the absence of inadvertent misconfigurations and facilitating rapid incident investigations when necessary.

The following are three action items every organization should follow:

1. Utilize Self-Service Access

Implementing a self-service approach to access management is pivotal in empowering the workforce and diminishing reliance on IT and security teams. By offering employees a user-friendly self-service portal, companies can facilitate access requests to cloud resources, applications, and data as needed.

2. Implement Flexible No-Code Workflows

In access management, it is crucial to distinguish between privileged access and standard access. Privileged access pertains to elevated permissions granted to individuals necessitating administrative or special privileges for their duties, while standard access relates to regular user access for routine tasks. Automating least privilege access empowers organizations to differentiate between these access types and enforce more stringent controls on privileged accounts. By automating the provisioning and revocation of privileged access, companies can curtail the risk of misuse, insider threats, and unauthorized activities.

Flexible no-code workflows play a pivotal role in automating least-privilege access. These workflows enable organizations to define customizable approval sets based on various criteria, such as data sensitivity, identity provider (IdP) group membership, access duration, on-call schedules, and more.

By tailoring approval workflows to align with the distinct needs of various teams, projects, and roles, organizations can strike a balance between security and operational efficiency. This approach guarantees that access is granted based on appropriate checks and balances while accommodating the specific requirements and urgency of different access requests.

3. Enable Direct API Capabilities for Granular Provisioning

Fine-grained access control forms a cornerstone of least-privilege access, ensuring that employees only possess the permissions required to fulfill their specific responsibilities. Automating fine-grained access empowers organizations to define and enforce access permissions based on roles, responsibilities, and project prerequisites. This precision significantly reduces the potential impact of security incidents, as access is confined to the exact resources and actions required, minimizing the scope for lateral movement or unauthorized data exposure.

To achieve fine-grained permissions and efficient access provisioning, it is imperative to have direct API capabilities. APIs facilitate seamless integration with existing systems, applications, and identity providers, enabling real-time access provisioning and revocation.

Real-time provisioning of access enables JIT access, a crucial component of automated least-privilege access. Instead of granting continuous access to resources, JIT access authorizes permissions for a limited timeframe, precisely when needed. This approach minimizes the attack surface by narrowing the window of opportunity for potential threats. Through the implementation of JIT access, organizations can bolster security and guarantee that employees have access only when essential, mitigating the risk of unauthorized use or data exposure.

By harnessing APIs, organizations can automate the complete access management process, from request submission to approval, provisioning, and auditing. This high level of automation simplifies procedures for IT and security teams while ensuring accurate and timely access control.

About Apono

Apono is a leading provider of least-privilege access management solutions that enhance access control with dynamic mechanisms. With Apono’s platform, organizations can leverage Just-In-Time (JIT) access and Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) functionalities to achieve a more flexible and adaptable access management approach.

We’re excited to announce that we’ve just published our Buyer’s Guide for Privileged Access Governance solutions!

Why we created the guide

Most companies in the world today have already migrated most of their workloads to the cloud, with 91 percent of organizations reporting that they already have or will refactor their applications to use cloud-native technologies. And the major cloud providers, AWS, Azure, and GCP, are now the way that most people work. And most resources, such as databases or machines, are running in the cloud. Yet few teams can effectively manage identities in the cloud at scale, with Gartner estimating that by 2023, 75 percent of cloud security failures will occur due to insufficient management of identities and accesses.

As a result, controlling, monitoring and auditing privileged access has become even more critical for protecting against both external and internal threat vectors, human error and a growing list of compliance requirements. However, organizations are growing increasingly frustrated with the existing solutions designed to deal with the unique nature of privileged  resources, leading to a new category called Privileged Access Governance (PAG).

In this guide, we examine (among other things) the following:

• Where existing PAM solutions fall short
• The emergence of a new privileged access solution, Privileged Access Governance 
• The 10 questions you should ask when evaluating a Privileged Access Governance solution

Get your copy today.

Organizations are twice as likely to get breached through compromised credentials than any other threat vector. Compromised credentials are when credentials, such as usernames and passwords, are exposed to unauthorized entities. 

When lost, stolen or exposed, compromised credentials can give the intruder insider’s access. Although monitoring and analysis within the enterprise can identify suspicious activity, these credentials effectively bypass perimeter security and complicate detection. 

Problem

Having perpetual or standing privileged access to a critical application, sensitive database, or production environment is all that is needed to execute commands to expose data and inflict damage, such as create fake accounts, exfiltrate sensitive data, cause damage to infrastructure, and delete or hold data for ransom—all of which can impact a company’s reputation and bottom line. 

“Oftentimes, risk is amplified due to users having more privileges than required or due to general negligence caused by the burden of managing permissions.” – Rom Carmel, CEO and co-founder, Apono.

Solution: Okta + Apono 

For organizations using Okta as their centralized identity and SSO provider, Apono provides a platform to enforce the zero-standing access and principle of least privilege with time-based access controls, just-in-time access provisioning, and easy-to-use access reviews—all from one central platform. 

Apono natively integrates with Okta, which enables employees to request access to Apps, Cloud Environments, Roles, Databases, Cloud Resources, and Groups. In addition, Apono syncs with Okta as a source of truth for identity: importing users, organizational attributes like employees’ managers, and their group mapping. 

With Apono for Okta, teams can strike the right balance between enabling workforce productivity and minimizing their identity-based attack surface area. 

Benefits of Apono for Okta Customers

• Complete IAM visibility: discover all users and groups, or pick just the groups your want to sync with Apono 
• JIT Access based on Okta groups: set dynamic Access Flows around group members and teams; who can request and be granted fine-grained access to cloud resources 
• Just-in-time group membership: managing on-call shifts, access to production environments and CI/CD apps with Okta groups? With Apono users can request temporary group membership based on dynamic Access Flows.
• Simple and secure integration, with the Apono app for Okta 
• Automated, fully logged provisioning and deprovisioning of privileged permissions

Okta + Apono Benefits

• Replacing standing access with just-in-time and time-based access
• Automating identity governance and access control for sensitive apps and infrastructure.
• Running user access reviews more proactively—such as upon a role change or departure.
• Empowering employees with the right context to make security-based access decisions.

Okta + Apono Use Cases

1. Protect PII and Meet Compliance Standards

Protecting Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and meeting compliance standards is crucial for organizations to ensure the privacy and security of individuals’ sensitive data. Compliance with data protection regulations is an ongoing process, and it requires a commitment from the entire organization to protect PII effectively. 

Many regulatory frameworks require organizations to implement strict controls over privileged access. Apono provides the necessary tools to establish and demonstrate compliance with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and more. Non-compliance can result in severe penalties and reputational damage, making it essential to prioritize these efforts. 

2. Control and Separate Access to Customer Data

Database access control is key to customer satisfaction – customers want to (and are required to) ensure least privilege to their data and their customers’ data by their vendors.

This may include metadata, like users, resource names (like DBs, repositories, etc.), DaaS (data as a service) titles and paths, and also actual data, especially Personal Identifiable Information of customers and employees (names, IDs, addresses, emails, phone numbers, and any other personal attribute).

Apono handles the access workflow for each user who needs to access a customer environment, account, tenant or database, including approval, provisioning, secure access details, revocation and audit.

3. Create Automated, Granular Dynamic Access Workflows

Automated, granular, dynamic access workflows provide the right level of access to users and systems based on a variety of factors, such as role, context, and changing circumstances. They not only enhance security but also improve operational efficiency by reducing the administrative burden of managing access manually. They adapt to changing user roles, contexts, and resource sensitivities, helping organizations stay secure and compliant in a dynamic digital environment. 

Since some organizations require a manager’s approval to access sensitive data, one of the most popular dynamic flows uses the Okta Manager attribute. Apono syncs with Okta to get the manager info for each developer and then sends the manager his or her access requests for approval. When the manager changes, Apono knows about it.

About Apono

Apono is a leading provider of access management solutions that enhance access control with dynamic mechanisms. With Apono’s platform, organizations can leverage Just-In-Time (JIT) access and Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) functionalities to achieve a more flexible and adaptable access management approach.

Learn more: Apono Docs

For years, organizations have recognized the importance of closely managing employee access using identity governance and administration solutions. More recently, they have come to realize that the same level of governance is essential for non-employees as well.   

A study sponsored by Opus and conducted by Ponemon found that 59 percent of companies reported data breaches caused by their vendors or third parties, many of which went unnoticed. 

With the increasing prevalence of third-party cybersecurity incidents, the management of non-employee access has become more critical than ever.  How can organizations ensure that non-employees can access the necessary resources to perform their duties while maintaining sufficient restrictions to prevent security risks?  

Cyberattacks through an organization’s vendors or suppliers

Organizations are dependent upon their third-party vendors to provide important services such as payroll, software development or data processing. However, without having strong security controls in place, vendors, suppliers, contractors or business partners can put organizations at risk for a third-party data breach. 

In addition, cyberattacks through an organization’s vendors or suppliers are greatly underreported. According to new research from Ponemon Institute and Mastercard’s RiskRecon, only 34% of organizations are confident their suppliers would notify them of a breach of their sensitive information.  

Why is permission control for third parties so complicated?

Companies are progressively relying more on third-party collaborations, sharing confidential and sensitive information with an average of 583 third parties. However, just 34 percent maintain a comprehensive record of these third-party relationships, with an even lower percentage, 15 percent, doing so for Nth parties. The primary reason, cited by 69 percent of respondents, for this lack of comprehensive inventory is the absence of centralized control. Other significant factors include a shortage of resources and the intricate nature of these third-party partnerships.

Moreover, less than half of all companies consider the management of risks associated with third-party relationships as effective and a top priority within their organization. A mere 37 percent claim to possess sufficient resources for managing these relationships, and only 35 percent rate their third-party risk management program as highly effective. Additionally, over half of the companies are uncertain whether their vendor safeguards are adequate to prevent a breach.  

“The third-party ecosystem is an ideal environment for cyber criminals looking to infiltrate an organization, and the risk only grows as these networks become larger and more complex,” said Dov Goldman, VP, Innovation & Alliances of Opus. “To stay ahead of the risk, companies and executives need to collaborate around plans for third-party detection and mitigation that supports automated technology and strong governance practices.”

No centralized control over third-party relationships 

Because accountability for the third-party risk management program is not centralized

within one function, it can create a barrier to having a comprehensive inventory of all third

parties. In the Ponemon study, only 34 percent of respondents say they have a comprehensive inventory of all their third parties. Of these respondents, 69 percent of respondents cite a lack of centralized control over third-party relationships as to why they do not have such an inventory. Almost half of respondents (48 percent) say complexity in third-party relationships is a barrier, as seen in the graph below.

You absolutely need to apply granular access controls around vendor access to enforce least privilege and meet many compliance requirements. You absolutely need to ensure best practices like password management and session auditing are implemented. These security controls are essential to mitigating the most common and dangerous vendor access attack vectors.

About Apono, Permission Control for Every User 

Apono is a granular permission control solution that offers fine-grained access policies to cloud assets. Apono integrates directly with the specific service or resource type. This allows us to  change the permissions at the resource level itself, for example a specific collection or table in your data repository instead of the entire cluster. Our solution allows for control of specific roles and permissions of each resource type and service from one central tool, bringing a unified privilege control plane to the admin, with workflows and audit capabilities on top.  

The modern workplace is constantly evolving, with organizations of all sizes needing to keep up with the ever-changing landscape. One essential part of ensuring a secure working environment is having the right permission control in place. 

Fine-grained permission control is a powerful tool for organizations to manage access and security within their networks and systems. By using this type of permission control, organizations can set restrictions on what type of data is accessible and by whom, helping to prevent unauthorized access or data breaches. Not only is this critical for keeping sensitive information safe, but it also helps to ensure that everyone in the organization is able to access the resources they need to do their job. 

What is Granular Permission Control?

Granular permission control is the ability to set and manage user access to different areas of a system at a highly specific level. It allows organizations to assign permissions on a per-user or per-role basis, ensuring that individuals only have access to the resources and information they need to perform their tasks. This level of control helps prevent unauthorized access and reduces the risk of data breaches. 

Smart granular permission control leverages native integrations to all critical services, apps, and data repositories and is able to grant permissions in as high or low of granularity as is required. 

For example, a self-hosted and cloud-hosted PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Mongo integration can manage access to clusters, databases, collections, schemas, and more, whereas traditional PAM solutions usually stop at the app level.

The Risks of Inadequate Permission Control

Without proper permission control, organizations face several risks. Unauthorized individuals may gain access to sensitive data, leading to data breaches and potential legal and financial repercussions. Inadequate permission control can also result in data loss, as users may accidentally delete or modify critical information. Additionally, organizations may experience a lack of accountability and traceability, making it difficult to track and monitor user activities. In summary, the risks of inadequate permission control include data breaches, data loss, and a lack of accountability.

Protecting Sensitive Data with Fine-Grained Permissions

One of the key benefits of fine-grained permission control is its ability to protect sensitive data. By granting access to specific users or roles, organizations can ensure that only those who need to see certain information have the ability to do so. This level of control significantly reduces the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access, providing peace of mind for both organizations and their clients. With fine-grained permissions, organizations can safeguard their sensitive data and maintain the confidentiality and integrity of their information.

Types of Permission Controls

1. Role-based access control. This is one of the most common forms of granular access control that limits access based on the user’s role in an organization. It works by associating each user with a particular role that defines their level of access rights to specific resources.

2. Attribute-based access control. ABAC assigns permissions based on user attributes such as location, time, or other contextual information.

3. Policy-based access control. PBAC is when each type of user is assigned a set of policies that define what they are allowed to do. When they attempt to access a resource, the system checks the policies to see if they are allowed to do so. If the user’s policies allow them to access said resource, they are granted access; if not, access is denied.

4. Resource-based access control. In a resource-based policy, the access control rules are associated with the resource itself, rather than being managed centrally by an authority or user.

Best Practices for Effective Fine-Grained Permission Management

To ensure effective fine-grained permission management, organizations should follow best practices. Firstly, it’s crucial to conduct a thorough audit of user access levels and permissions. This helps identify any inconsistencies or vulnerabilities. Secondly, organizations should adopt a least privilege principle, granting users the minimum access necessary to perform their tasks. 

It’s important to make sure the solution has the capabilities to dynamically grant and revoke permissions to all the critical resources and services to which it governs access. In addition, the solution should strive to offer robust and dynamic IFTTT scenarios, by leveraging context about on-call shifts, IdP groups, managers, work hours, and more to make sure Just-in-Time access is refined to the specific business use case.  

When looking for a solution, it’s important it is also able to integrate directly with the services and the changing of the permissions at the integration level itself and speak the policy language of each one, bringing a unified privilege control plane to the admin, with workflows and audit capabilities on top. Lastly, regularly training employees on data security practices will further enhance the effectiveness of fine-grained permission management. 

About Apono

Apono is a granular permission control solution that offers fine-grained access policies to cloud assets. Apono integrates directly with the specific service or resource type. This allows us to  change the permissions at the resource level itself, for example a specific collection or table in your data repository instead of the entire cluster. Our solution allows for control of specific roles and permissions of each resource type and service from one central tool, bringing a unified privilege control plane to the admin, with workflows and audit capabilities on top. Try us free!

The digital world has become a hub for organizational data and sensitive information. It is essential to manage this information and protect it from unwanted breaches and threats. That’s where cybersecurity and access control come into the picture. Privileged Access Management (PAM) and Identity and Access Management (IAM) are two crucial concepts that organizations must consider when securing their digital assets. 

Identity and access management (IAM) and privileged access management (PAM) are two related but distinct concepts that organizations use to manage their security policies and user access rights.     

IAM vs PAM 

PAM deals with providing privileged users, such as system administrators, database administrators, and IT managers, with access to sensitive information or assets. It controls the user’s actions and limits their access to only necessary information, thereby minimizing the risk of any potential breaches. In contrast, IAM manages user access to a company’s information and resources based on their role, job, or other relevant factors. IAM also enables the administrators to revoke access rights if they leave the company or change their roles.

To paint a more vivid picture, imagine a secure room in a building that contains critical company information. The PAM system will restrict access to this room and only allow specific individuals with proper authorization and clearance to enter the room. Furthermore, PAM would limit the authorized personnel’s time within the room, logging all their activities and actions to monitor their use. Conversely, the IAM system will limit the access of each employee within the company’s premises based on their job roles, only giving access to the information necessary to fulfill their job duties.

In conclusion, PAM and IAM serve different functions but are both vital in securing organizational data and assets. Understanding these concepts and their functionalities is crucial to ensure the safety and confidentiality of digital information. Organizations must ensure they adopt a suitable combination of PAM and IAM tools to control access to information effectively.

IAM vs PAM

IAM focuses on controlling access to a broader range of resources, such as applications, data, and services, for all types of users within an organization, from employees to partners, contractors, and customers. IAM solutions provide centralized and automated tools to manage user authentication, authorization, and identity provisioning, including password policies, single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and role-based access control (RBAC). IAM is often integrated with other security systems and compliance frameworks, such as audit logs and identity governance, risk, and compliance (GRC).



Key features of IAM include:

• User provisioning and de-provisioning: Managing user accounts and access privileges throughout their lifecycle, including onboarding, changes, and offboarding.
• Authentication and authorization: Verifying the identity of users and granting them appropriate permissions based on their roles and responsibilities.
• Single Sign-On (SSO): Allowing users to access multiple applications and services with a single set of credentials.
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA): Enhancing security by requiring multiple forms of authentication.
• Role-based access control (RBAC): Assigning permissions based on job roles or responsibilities.
• Auditing and reporting: Monitoring and recording user access activities for compliance and security purposes.

PAM vs IAM

On the other hand, PAM deals with managing privileged or administrative access to critical systems, applications, and data, that are crucial for maintaining the IT infrastructure and operations. PAM solutions are designed to control and monitor the actions of privileged users, such as IT administrators, network engineers, and DevOps staff, who have extensive access to sensitive resources and can cause severe damage if misused or compromised. PAM tools provide features such as session recording, password rotation, workflow approval, and just-in-time (JIT) access, to reduce the risk of insider threats and external attacks that exploit privileged credentials.



Key features of PAM include:

• Privileged account discovery. Identifying and cataloging privileged accounts and their associated assets.
• Password management. Ensuring strong and frequently rotated passwords for privileged accounts.
• Just-in-time access. Granting temporary and controlled access to privileged accounts only when needed.
• Session monitoring and recording. Capturing and monitoring activities performed by privileged users for audit and forensic purposes.
• Privilege elevation. Providing a secure and audited way to elevate a user’s access privileges as needed.
• Least privilege principle. Restricting privileged users to the minimum level of access required to perform their tasks.

PAM vs IAM Summary

IAM focuses on managing access rights for all users across an organization, while PAM specifically deals with securing and controlling privileged access to sensitive systems and data. Both IAM and PAM are essential components of a comprehensive security strategy, working together to minimize security risks and maintain compliance with industry standards and regulations.

About Apono, a Gartner-approved solution

Apono is a granular permission control solution that offers fine-grained access policies to cloud assets. Apono integrates directly with the specific service or resource type. This allows us to  change the permissions at the resource level itself, for example a specific collection or table in your data repository instead of the entire cluster. Our solution allows for control of specific roles and permissions of each resource type and service from one central tool, bringing a unified privilege control plane to the admin, with workflows and audit capabilities on top. 

Apono is excited to announce it’s been recognized in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Privileged Access Management! In its short history (founded in 2021), Apono has already received a number of devoted users and is proud to receive this award.

Summary

The significance of robust privileged access management has never been higher, with cyberinsurance firms now insisting on the adoption of PAM tools. Gartner concludes that leaders in security and risk management should leverage the research in the Gartner report to assess the efficacy of their strategies.

What is Privileged Access?

Privileged accounts serve as a significant avenue for breaches to occur.  Privileged access is access beyond the level granted to normal business users. It allows users to override existing access controls, change security configurations, or make changes affecting multiple users or systems. Privileged access can create, modify and delete IT infrastructure, along with company data contained in that infrastructure, so it carries catastrophic risk. 

Managing privileged access is thus a critical security function for every organization. Regular user access controls cannot effectively manage privileged access, so special procedures and tools are required. 

Gartner Defines Privileged Access Management

Gartner defines privileged access management (PAM) as tools that manage and protect accounts, credentials and commands that offer an elevated level of technical access, that is, administer or configure systems and applications. Available as software, SaaS or hardware appliances, PAM tools manage privileged access for people (system administrators and others) and machines (systems or applications). 

PAM solutions secure just-in-time and zero-standing privileged access across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

Gartner’s four distinct tool categories for PAM tools are the following: 

• Privileged account and session management (PASM). Vaulting of privileged account credentials, and session management for privileged users
• Privilege elevation and delegation management (PEDM). Host-based agents that provide command; filtering and privilege elevation for users on macOS, UNIX/Linux and Windows. 
• Secrets management. Specialized vault focused on managing credentials for software and workloads. 
• Cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM). Management of entitlements used in cloud service provider (CSP) infrastructure.     

PAM controls ensure authorized use of privileges (including any related mechanism like privileged accounts or credentials) in authorized target systems for all relevant use cases.

Key Capabilities for Consideration

The must-have capabilities for PAM are:

• Offering centralized management and enforcement of privileged access by controlling either access to privileged accounts and credentials or execution of privileged commands (or both).
• Managing and brokering privileged access to authorized users (i. E. , system administrators, operators, help desk staff, and so on) on a temporary basis.

Standard capabilities include:

• Credential vaulting and management for privileged accounts.
• Agent-based controlled privilege elevation for commands executed on windows, unix/linux or macos operating systems.
• Privileged account discovery across multiple systems, applications and cloud infrastructure providers.
• Management, monitoring, recording, and remote access for privileged sessions.
• Auditing capabilities to ascertain who used what privileged access when and where.

Optional capabilities include:

• Secrets management for applications and services.
• Privileged account life cycle management and remote privileged access for vendors, service providers and other external users that require technical access.
• Just-in-time privilege management to reduce the time and scope that a user is granted a privilege to the minimum possible.
• Cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM) and discovery.

Apono Enables Simple and Secure Access to Production

With Apono, you can have all the benefits of accessing production data without any of the risks. When an engineer requires access to fix or investigate a production issue, for example, they can get access automatically through the Data Portal, with built-in security policies enabling them to access only the types of data required, and have that access revoked when it’s no longer needed. 

In a perfect world, no one would have access to production, as that’s the safest way to make sure there won’t be any issues, however this remains unattainable for most companies. 

On the one hand, providing developers access to production servers can be risky. If they make changes to the code or configuration, it could break things for everyone else. Also, having too many people with access to production servers can make it more difficult to track what changes have been made and when. 

On the other hand, developers need access to production servers to be able to debug issues that may arise. They also need to be able to deploy code changes and monitor their performance in production. Without any type of access to production servers, many developers would not be able to effectively do their job.

While it’s advisable not to grant access to production environments, often, there is simply no way around it, and access has to be granted. Therefore, you need to ensure that the risks of exposure are as low as possible.

10 Risks of Accessing Production Data

Increasing the number of people who have production access increases the likelihood of the risks typically associated with higher-privileged access. The most common risks are operational impairments due to misconfiguration (e.g., a malformed production change causes the system to become unavailable to its customers), security breaches due to negligent actions, or confidential information leaks due to mishandling datasets. 

• Accidental Outages. Developers may inadvertently make changes or updates that disrupt production services, leading to downtime or reduced system performance. This can occur due to coding errors, misconfigurations, or incorrect deployment procedures.
• Data Loss or Corruption. Inexperienced or improperly trained developers may accidentally delete or modify critical data, leading to data loss or data corruption in the production environment.
• Security Vulnerabilities. Developers accessing production systems may introduce security vulnerabilities, especially if they have excessive or unnecessary privileges. They may inadvertently expose sensitive data or create security holes during development or troubleshooting.
• Unauthorized Access. Developers with access to production environments could misuse their privileges, intentionally or unintentionally. This misuse might involve unauthorized data access or changes, potentially leading to data breaches or other security incidents.
• Limited Accountability. In shared or poorly controlled environments, it can be challenging to attribute specific actions to individual developers, making it difficult to identify the source of problems or security breaches.
• Operational Disruptions. Frequent access by developers can disrupt the operational flow of the production environment. While developers are troubleshooting or testing, the system might be less stable or responsive.
• Uncontrolled Changes. Developers might make changes in the production environment without adhering to proper change control procedures. This can lead to undocumented changes, making it difficult to track and manage the system effectively.
• Exposure to Sensitive Data. Developers may encounter sensitive data in production environments, such as personal information or financial data. Mishandling or accidental exposure of this data can result in legal and compliance issues.
• Resource Constraints. Developers accessing production systems for troubleshooting or experimentation can consume resources and potentially affect the performance of the environment for end users.
• Lack of Separation of Duties. In some cases, developers may have both development and production access, which can lead to a lack of separation of duties and potential conflicts of interest.

10 Benefits of Accessing Production Data

Allowing developers access to production environments, when done responsibly and with proper controls in place, can bring several benefits to an organization. Here are some of the advantages of letting developers access production environments:

• Faster Issue Resolution. Developers can troubleshoot and diagnose issues in the production environment more effectively when they have direct access. This can lead to quicker resolutions and reduced downtime.
• Improved Software Quality. Access to production allows developers to gain firsthand insights into how their code behaves in a real-world environment. They can identify and address issues related to performance, scalability, and compatibility more effectively.
• Enhanced Collaboration. Developers can collaborate more efficiently with operations and system administrators to optimize the production environment. This cross-functional collaboration can lead to improved system performance and stability.
• Rapid Deployment and Updates. Developers can deploy new features and updates directly to the production environment, reducing the time between development and deployment. This agility is essential in fast-paced development cycles, such as those in DevOps environments.
• Effective Monitoring. Developers can set up and configure monitoring tools and alerts in the production environment, enabling proactive issue detection and response. This contributes to higher system availability and reliability.
• Knowledge Transfer. Developers who are familiar with the production environment can transfer their expertise to other team members, improving overall team capability and reducing reliance on a select few experts.
• Continuous Improvement. Developers can gather feedback and real-world data from the production environment, enabling continuous improvement of applications and services. This iterative process can lead to better user experiences and business outcomes.    
• Cost Savings. By empowering developers to handle routine operational tasks and troubleshoot issues, organizations can reduce the need for dedicated operations teams or external support, resulting in cost savings.
• Agile Development. Developers can perform A/B testing, feature toggling, and other agile development practices more easily in the production environment, facilitating rapid experimentation and feature rollout.
• Faster Feedback Loops. Developers can receive immediate feedback on their code changes and their impact on the production environment. This tight feedback loop helps identify issues early in the development process.

Giving devs a least-privileged role is how they are typically given access to the production environment. While this is a solid approach, many times developers only need to briefly access a production database system and run a few ad-hoc queries to troubleshoot the current bug. For large organizations, administering access is a full-time job. In an agile world, people move teams and switch to different projects seemingly on an hourly basis. This can lead to a lot of churn in access management to your backend database systems.

A better approach for handling access to database systems would be to allow your application developers to provision their own access and have it revoked with no extra work on your end.  With the right data access controls in place (read-only access), a dev could grant themselves temporary access to certain resources to debug issues that  will be automatically deprovisioned for whenever you choose.

Apono Enables Simple and Secure Access to Production

With Apono, you can have all the benefits of accessing production data without any of the risks. When an engineer requires access to fix or investigate a production issue, for example, they can get access automatically through the Data Portal, with built-in security policies enabling them to access only the types of data required, and have that access revoked when it’s no longer needed.