Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

 

DEFINITION OF ROLE-BASED ACCESS CONTROL (RBAC)

Role-based access control (RBAC) restricts network access based on a person's role within an organization and has become one of the main methods for advanced access control. The roles in RBAC refer to the levels of access that employees have to the network.

Employees are only allowed to access the information necessary to effectively perform their job duties. Access can be based on several factors, such as authority, responsibility, and job competency. In addition, access to computer resources can be limited to specific tasks such as the ability to view, create, or modify a file.

As a result, lower-level employees usually do not have access to sensitive data if they do not need it to fulfill their responsibilities. This is especially helpful if you have many employees and use third-parties and contractors that make it difficult to closely monitor network access. Using RBAC will help in securing your company’s sensitive data and important applications.

EXAMPLE OF ROLE-BASED ACCESS CONTROL

An organization assigns a role-based access control role to every employee; the role determines which permissions the system grants to the user. For example, you can designate whether a user is an administrator, a specialist, or an end-user, and limit access to specific resources or tasks. An organization may let some individuals create or modify files while providing others with viewing permission only.

One role-based access control example is a set of permissions that allow users to read, edit, or delete articles in a writing application. There are two roles, a Writer and a Reader, and their respective permission levels are presented in this truth table. Using this table, you can assign permissions to each user.

Permission/Role	Writer	Reader
Edit	Yes	No
Delete	Yes	No
Read	Yes	Yes

 

Implementing Role-Based Access Control

Role-based access control allows organizations to improve their security posture and comply with security regulations. However, implementing role-based access control across an entire organization can be complex and may result in pushback from stakeholders. To succeed in your move to RBAC, you should treat the implementation process as a series of steps:

• Understanding your business needs—before you move to RBAC, you should run a comprehensive needs analysis to examine job functions, supporting business processes and technologies. You should also consider any regulatory or audit requirements and assess the current security posture of your organization. You may also benefit from other types of access control.
• Planning the scope of implementation—identify the scope of your RBAC requirements and plan the implementation to align with the organization’s needs. Narrow your scope to focus on systems or applications that store sensitive data. This will also help your organization manage the transition
• Defining roles—it will be easier to define your roles once you have performed the needs analysis and understand how individuals perform their tasks. Watch out for common role design pitfalls like excessive or insufficient granularity, role overlap, and granting too many exceptions for RBAC permissions.
• Implementation—the final phase involves rolling out the RBAC. Do this in stages, to avoid an overwhelming workload and reduce disruption to the business. First, address a core group of users. Start with coarse-grained access control before increasing granularity. Collect feedback from users and monitor your environment to plan the next stages of implementation.