Tag: Deprovisioning

Save Costs and Boost Security with Automated User Provisioning and Deprovisioning

 

Provisioning and de-provisioning are critical processes in managing access to data and systems within an organization. Proper provisioning ensures new employees receive the access rights they need to perform their jobs effectively. Conversely, de-provisioning ensures access is promptly revoked when an employee leaves the organization, preventing unauthorized access to sensitive information.

Failing to provision or de-provision users correctly results in several issues.

  • Delays in provisioning mean users don’t have the access they need, and that’s productive time lost
  • Users with inappropriate access may inadvertently modify or delete important data, leading to inaccuracies
  • Former employees with lingering access, after they exit the organization, can pose significant security threats, leading to data breaches
  • Organizations may face regulatory fines and reputational damage if they fail to manage access controls

Most of these problems are caused by a manual process for provisioning and de-provisioning – here’s why.

  • Time-Consuming Processes: IT teams spend a significant amount of time creating, managing, and disabling user accounts, which can delay access for new hires and leave security gaps when employees depart. A manual process involves multiple steps and approvals, such as filling out forms, sending emails, waiting for responses, and logging into different systems, which can be tedious, repetitive, and prone to delays or failures, especially when dealing with many users or frequent changes. Automated provisioning reduces this process from days to just minutes.
  • Human Errors: Manual processes are susceptible to mistakes, such as granting incorrect access rights or failing to revoke access promptly. For example, a user may be granted access to a resource they should not have, or a user may be left with access to a resource that they no longer need. These errors can cause security breaches, compliance issues, operational problems, or data leaks.
  • Lack of Consistency: Ensuring consistent application of access policies is difficult, leading to potential security vulnerabilities. Provisioning done poorly creates problems with employee onboarding and offboarding, thus straining relationships between departments and adding unnecessary stress across an organization. Governance, risk, security, and compliance teams are frustrated when employees have too much access or access they don’t need or, worse when poor offboarding doesn’t remove access for someone who has left the organization.
  • Lack of auditability: A manual process may not provide a clear and comprehensive record of who has access to what, when, why, and how. This can make it difficult to monitor, review, and report on user activity and access rights, as well as to detect and respond to any anomalies or incidents. Manual processes may fail to meet regulatory requirements for user provisioning and de-provisioning, such as separation of duties, role-based access control, and identity verification.

A manual provisioning and de-provisioning process brings with it certain direct and indirect costs.

  • Direct Costs: The time and resources required to manage user accounts manually can add up, diverting IT staff from more strategic tasks.
  • Indirect Costs: Inconsistent access management can lead to security breaches, regulatory fines, and damage to the organization’s reputation.

That’s why it’s time to make the move to automated user provisioning and de-provisioning.

1. Access control in real-time

Automated systems ensure that new employees have instant access to the necessary resources, enhancing productivity from day one. Automated provisioning sets up access and privileges for each resource in the organization based on the employee’s role and company rules. When an admin adds, edits, or removes a user, the system automatically adjusts the access—turning it on, changing it, or turning it off. Similarly, access can be promptly revoked for departing employees, mitigating security risks.

2. Consistent application of policies

Automation enforces consistent access policies across the organization, reducing the likelihood of errors and ensuring compliance with industry regulations. By automatically giving and taking away access based on set rules, it reduces the chance of unauthorized access. This automatic system eliminates human error, lowering the risk of security breaches.

3. Reduction in administrative overhead

By automating repetitive tasks, IT teams can focus on more strategic initiatives, reducing the overall administrative burden and operational costs.

A study by Aberdeen Group found that effective onboarding can improve new hire productivity by 60% and reduce turnover by 50%. Using automation software and remote support, companies can speed up the onboarding process and help new employees get up to speed faster.

4. Minimizing the Risk of Data Breaches

Automated deprovisioning ensures that former employees no longer have access to sensitive data, significantly lowering the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access. According to a Thales report, human actions can compromise security, with 44% of their survey respondents saying they’ve experienced one. In the past year alone, 14% reported a breach.

So how do you choose the right tool to automate user provisioning and deprovisioning?

  • Integration capabilities: Ensure the tool integrates with your existing systems and applications. This will reduce the time required to set up infrastructure components, such as virtual machines, databases, and networking resources, accelerating time-to-market for applications and services.
  • Scalability: As your organization grows, the number of access requests will also increase. So, choose a solution that can grow with your organization and adapt to changing needs.
  • Ease of Use: Look for tools with intuitive interfaces that simplify the setup and management of user provisioning and de-provisioning. Use automated provisioning software that can handle tasks like assigning IP addresses, configuring DNS, and setting permissions for employees and clients. This helps integrate the entire work infrastructure of an organization with just a click.

Automating user provisioning and de-provisioning is a smart investment for organizations looking to enhance security, reduce costs, and improve efficiency. But you need to implement the right automation tools so your organization can ensure immediate access control, consistent policy application, reduced administrative overhead, and minimized risk of data breaches. Our experts at Akku can help you with that. Reach out to us today.

The What, Why, and How of Deprovisioning

What’s deprovisioning?

Simply put, deprovisioning is the opposite of provisioning. While provisioning is carried out when an employee joins the organization, deprovisioning needs to be carried out when an employee exits. 

Deprovisioning involves revoking the user’s access to the organization’s data, applications and devices. It is the final stage of the corporate user lifecycle that begins with on-boarding and provisioning.

Why is it important?

Provisioning plays an important role in an organization’s productivity by getting new users the access they require to perform their role in the company. 

Deprovisioning, on the other hand, plays a critical role in security and compliance. When an employee moves on, it is vital that they no longer have access to the organization’s data or applications, because this would leave the door open to misuse. 

The consequences can range from data theft to malware insertion, leaks of confidential information to compliance violations. Each of these can have a major negative impact on the company’s finances as well as reputation.

How does it work?

Most organizations make use of multiple applications in their operations. Manually remembering to revoke access from a user when they exit the company can therefore be tedious, time consuming, and can easily result in human error as well.

A key requirement for an efficient and effective provisioning and deprovisioning process, therefore, is to bring control over access to all of the organization’s applications and data onto a single platform. This is typically achieved through the use of a Single Sign-On (SSO) solution – which is typically one of the major components of an Identity and Access Management solution.

With an SSO in place, the company’s admins can exercise control over user access from a single place, making the process fast, accurate and convenient. By removing the user’s account in one centralized dashboard, their access to all applications and data is then automatically revoked.

Akku is an enterprise identity and access management solution by CloudNow that helps companies manage the corporate user lifecycle more efficiently – from provisioning all the way to deprovisioning. Talk to us today to see how Akku could help your business address security and compliance issues arising from sub-optimal deprovisioning processes.