From Static to Dynamic: Re-thinking Access Controls for Modern Identity Governance
Static access controls lead to inefficiencies and increased risk due to access creep and manual processes like periodic reviews. A dynamic, context-aware approach, like Ploy’s automated identity lifecycle management and just-in-time access, ensures least privilege, enhances compliance, and future-proofs access governance.
The Static Nature of Traditional Access Controls
Traditionally, organizations have relied on static access controls to manage access and permissions. While this approach is manageable in a more straightforward and predictive environment, organizations struggle to keep up with the pace of a more dynamic environment. Static controls are, in a way, rooted in granting broad and long-term access within an employee’s lifecycle, from onboarding to offboarding. This can also be categorized as birthright access, but the real challenge while scaling arrives when an employee switches roles or projects and gains additional responsibilities. Their access is infrequently adjusted in real-time, and these changes lead to access creep (a gradual accumulation of unnecessary permissions). Over time, access creep leads to an expanded attack surface where a singular compromised account can expose an organization’s critical resources or sensitive data.
A Case for Dynamic Access
A band-aid approach that many organizations employ is to conduct periodic user access reviews varying from quarterly to annual. While these are well-intentioned, these exercises are overly manual. Security teams have to audit and remove unnecessary across dozens or hundreds of user accounts and systems, time-consuming, relying on department stakeholders to validate access, and often left incomplete. This exact use case is what makes an occasion for dynamic access. Imagine an engineer deploying code to a system to fix another system’s bug. Dynamic access control would adapt to the engineer’s real-time needs, and access would be granted temporarily, scoped scarcely to perform specific tasks, and automatically revoked once the task is completed or after a particular time duration.
The State of Identity Lifecycle Management
Identity lifecycle management effectively is the spine of maintaining access governance encompassing an employee’s organizational lifecycle. A dynamic approach can bring agility, security, and efficient identity management, from creation to modification to eventual de-activation.
Dynamic Identity Creation: Instead of defaulting to broad access, a dynamic approach would be designed with scoped and temporary permission(s) aligning to the user’s role and job profile at the organization.
Modifications or Role Changes: As a user gains or changes responsibilities, identity systems alter permissions based on the context in real-time to align with the user’s new responsibilities.
Dynamic Off-boarding: Automated de-provisioning will ensure that access to all systems is revoked immediately upon a defined trigger point, preventing practices such as Shadow IT.
The Dynamic principle of Least privilege
Today, in highly growing and scalable organizations, real-time context awareness is crucial for the identity lifecycle. In traditional/static systems, preserving least privilege can be challenging. Scaling access goes far beyond permission, it takes account of context such as location (the geographic location a user is logging from), device (security standards of how systems are accessed from a device), and anomalies (deviations from usual patterns). A dynamic access governance approach transforms least privilege into a living adaptive principle. It can alter permissions based on context, just-in-time provisioning can prevent lingering access, and fine-grained controls can be tailored to broader role-based assignments.
A Role Compliance in Access
A static approach oftentimes lacks to meet compliance standards in the protracted run due to its dependence on a manual process and finite visibility. A dynamic governance approach can yield a multitude of benefits:
- Automating compliance actions by ensuring permissions and access are tightly scoped, time-bound, and well-documented in real time.
- Ensure that least privilege is maintained across systems in the organization with the use of RBAC.
- Periodic validation of access controls for critical systems through detailed audit trails and reporting.
The Future of Access Governance and how Ploy can help
The future of IAM is deeply entrenched in agility, precision, and automation. Dynamic organizational environments rely on some key principles:
- Real-time adaptability
- Unified visibility across systems
- Robust temporary and JIT access
- Automation at scale
Ploy is a platform that provides unified governance, making it effortless for organizations to transition from static to dynamic access control models. The platform’s key emphasis and strength rely on automation, least privilege enforcement, and contextual intelligence.
Here’s how Ploy can help you future-proof governance and provide reliable/scalable security:
