Organizations are often looking for ways to mitigate external cybersecurity risks. But the only thing they haven’t been able to detect is the threat of insider intrusion. Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a system that allows you to monitor all employees working under your organization’s protection.
With many users working on the same project, there are always surprises. Managing individual access can be difficult if the right systems are not in place. That’s where IAM comes in. IT administrators can get an overview of everyone working on a particular project. IAM with one-time passwords, security keys, and multi-factor authentication security protocols can have a significant impact on your organization’s security.so if you want to know How to comply with IAM policies To keep all insider threats at bay, you should focus on the following aspects:
Access control regulation
Providing access to your employees is not as easy as it sounds. There are multiple steps to enabling administrators to regulate access control in the office. Each employee is given access according to a specific role. Each department has a set of resources available only at its discretion. IT department access is very different from HR department access.
IAM supports role-based access control and automatic migration of permission levels when a particular employee’s role within an organization changes. This division of information and rules also helps set professional and personal boundaries within the workplace, minimizing insider threats.
User monitoring implementation
Gone are the days when managers just walked around the office to see how their employees were doing. In the era of digital workspaces and remote work, it’s getting harder to monitor each user’s activity. IAM allows administrators to monitor each user according to their activity.
This can be done by monitoring how many times users log into their accounts and if they fail to access company resources. User tracking helps you stay vigilant and prevent attacks that can put valuable IT resources at risk.
Deny Privileged Access
Make sure privileged access remains privileged. Most organizations make the mistake of providing privileged access to people working in the second or third tiers of control. This delegation of responsibility may seem simple at the time, but it has a dramatic impact on organizational security.
The administrator should provide the required information. If information reserved for privileged access does not need to be known by anyone, it should be left alone. An effective his IAS strategy should incorporate the principle of least privilege, following the concept of least user privilege or least clearance level.
Applying multi-factor authentication
Multi-factor authentication is a surefire way to enforce your organization’s security policies. By providing multiple forms of verification, the chances of an insider threat becoming a reality are reduced to zero.
Single-factor authentication is not as secure as MFA, and password-only authentication is easily hacked. Conversely, with security his key and her TOTP (a time-based one-time his password), a user only has 30 seconds for him to verify his identity. If a user is not on the employee list, the user cannot access confidential company information.
Configuring the IAM protocol for remote access
IAM is the go-to security solution for organizations that rely on hybrid or remote workforces. IAM strictly follows IAM policies to set protocols that ensure the security and integrity of data in transit and at rest.
These protocols are designed specifically for transporting authentication information, a series of messages arranged in a pre-established order to protect data during data transfer between servers or over networks. It consists of
Create a data protection policy
Role trust policies associated with IAM roles are the only resource-based policy type supported by the IAM service. IAM roles act as both resources and identities to support identity-based policies. Therefore, IAM roles must be associated with both trust and identity-based policies.
After implementing your IAM policies, be sure to set a baseline for your normal operational tasks. This allows you to filter out the noise and uncover potential anomalous behavior, making it more visible and increasing your chances of deterring and identifying insider threats.
Setting an IAM Permission Boundary
Managed policies set limits on the number of permissions that identity-based policies can provide to IAM entities. Simply put, identity-based policies grant permissions to entities. boundaries of authority Limit their privileges. When you set a permissions boundary for an entity, the entity can only perform activities that match the permissions boundary and identity-based policy.
However, resource-based policies that essentially specify roles or users are not restricted by permissions boundaries. An explicit deny for these policies takes precedence over an allow.
Service Control Policy (SCP) below
Similarly, organizations can leverage service-based policies to thwart insider attacks. Service-based policies are organizational policies used to manage permissions. SCP gives administrators complete control over the maximum privileges available to all accounts in their organization. Additionally, service-based policies help organizations comply with access control policies, ensuring maximum security of valuable resources.
However, SCP cannot successfully grant permissions on its own domain. The IT admin can set permissions restrictions and delegate them to her IAM users, but requires resource-based or her identity-based policies to grant permissions.
Using Access Control Lists (ACLs)
Another set of policies, called access control lists (ACLs), lets you manage which principals from different accounts can access resources. However, a principal’s access to resources within the same account cannot be controlled using ACLs. ACLs allow you to specify who has what access to your buckets and objects. IAM permissions can only be granted at the bucket level or higher, whereas ACLs can be specified on individual objects. These access control lists are similar to resource-based policies, but they are the only lists that do not utilize the JSON policy document format.
important point
Insider threats have become an enterprise-wide concern, requiring attention at the C-suite level. Malicious internal trusted employees can do devastating damage to a business’ security and reputation. However, implementing an effective his IAS framework in line with central access system governance and associated policy rules will greatly improve the ability to detect and stop internal security threats.
That said, while currently no solution or mechanism can guarantee 100% prevention and detection of insider risks, IAM is one of the most efficient and effective ways to secure access and counter insider attacks. is. To get the most out of your IAM solution, you need to understand and be able to effectively comply with a set of policies, such as IAM policies and their permission boundaries, and service control policies, to protect your business resources. there is.