Question

Role-based access control (RBAC), an accepted model for access control in enterprise environments, may provide the means for conditions effectively restrict access based on rules and prerequisite conditions. However, there may be weaknesses in this approach. Provide strengths and weaknesses of role-based access control use in any size organization of your choice.

Answer 1

Role-based access control (RBAC) is a method of restricting network access based on the roles of individual users within an enterprise. RBAC lets employees have access rights only to the information they need to do their jobs and prevents them from accessing information that doesn't pertain to them.

An employee's role in an organization determines the permissions that individual is granted and ensures that lower-level employees can't access sensitive information or perform high-level tasks.

Limiting network access is important for organizations that have many workers, employ contractors or permit access to third parties, like customers and vendors, making it difficult to monitor network access effectively. Companies that depend on RBAC are better able to secure their sensitive data and critical applications.

Benefits of RBAC
There are a number of benefits to using RBAC to restrict unnecessary network access based on people's roles within an organization, including:

Improving operational efficiency. With RBAC, companies can decrease the need for paperwork and password changes when they hire new employees or switch the roles of existing employees. RBAC lets organizations quickly add and change roles, as well as implement them across platforms, operating systems (OSes) and applications. It also cuts down on the potential for error when user permissions are being assigned. Additionally, with RBAC, companies can more easily integrate third-party users into their networks by giving them predefined roles.

Enhancing compliance. Every organization must comply with local, state and federal regulations. Companies generally prefer to implement RBAC systems to meet the regulatory and statutory requirements for confidentiality and privacy because executives and IT departments can more effectively manage how the data is accessed and used. This is particularly important for financial institutions and healthcare companies that manage sensitive data.

Giving administrators increased visibility. RBAC gives network administrators and managers more visibility and oversight into the business, while also guaranteeing that authorized users and guests on the system are only given access to what they need to do their jobs.

Reducing costs. By not allowing user access to certain processes and applications, companies may conserve or more cost-effectively use resources, such as network bandwidth, memory and storage.

Decreasing risk of breaches and data leakage. Implementing RBAC means restricting access to sensitive information, thus reducing the potential for data breaches or data leakage.

Some of the designations in an RBAC tool can include:

Management role scope – it limits what objects the role group is allowed to manage.
Management role group – you can add and remove members.
Management role – these are the types of tasks that can be performed by a specific role group.
Management role assignment – this links a role to a role group.

BEST PRACTICES FOR IMPLEMENTING RBAC

Implementing a RBAC into your organization shouldn’t happen without a great deal of consideration. There are a series of broad steps to bring the team onboard without causing unnecessary confusion and possible workplace irritations. Here are a few things to map out first.

Current Status: Create a list of every software, hardware and app that has some sort of security. For most of these things, it will be a password. However, you may also want to list server rooms that are under lock and key. Physical security can be a vital part of data protection. Also, list the status of who has access to all of these programs and areas. This will give you a snapshot of your current data scenario.

Current Roles: Even if you do not have a formal roster and list of roles, determining what each individual team member does may only take a little discussion. Try to organize the team in such a way that it doesn’t stifle creativity and the current culture.

Write a Policy: Any changes made need to be written for all current and future employees to see. Even with the use of a RBAC tool, a document clearly articulating your new system will help avoid potential issues.

Make Changes: Once the current security status and roles are understood, it’s time to make the changes.

Continually Adapt: It’s likely that the first iteration of RBAC will require some tweaking. Early on, you should evaluate your roles and security status frequently. Assess first, how well the creative/production process is working and secondly, how secure your process happens to be.

A core business function of any organization is protecting data. An RBAC system can ensure the company's information meets privacy and confidentiality regulations. Furthermore, it can secure key business processes, including access to IP, that affect the business from a competitive standpoint.

Disadvantage: The main disadvantage of RBAC is what is most often called the 'role explosion': due to the increasing number of different (real world) roles (sometimes differences are only very minor) you need an increasing number of (RBAC) roles to properly encapsulate the permissions (a permission in RBAC is an action/operation on an object/entity). Managing all those roles can become a complex affair.

Because of the abstraction choices that form the foundation of RBAC, it is also not very well suited to manage individual rights, but this is typically deemed less of a problem.

The main disadvantage of RBAC is what is most often called the 'role explosion': due to the increasing number of different (real world) roles (sometimes differences are only very minor) you need an increasing number of (RBAC) roles to properly encapsulate the permissions (a permission in RBAC is an action/operation on an object/entity). Managing all those roles can become a complex affair.

Because of the abstraction choices that form the foundation of RBAC, it is also not very well suited to manage individual rights, but this is typically deemed less of a problem.

it is coarse-grained. If you have a role called doctor, then you would give the doctor role a permission to "view medical record". That would give the doctor the right to view all medical records including their own. This is what leads to role explosion.

it is static. RBAC cannot use contextual information e.g. time, user location, device type.

it ignores resource meta-data e.g. medical record owner.

it is hard to manage and maintain. Very often, administrators will keep adding roles to users but never remove them. You end up with users that dozens if not hundreds of roles and permissions
it cannot cater to dynamic segregation-of-duty.

it relies on custom code within application layers (API, apps, DB...) to implement finer-grained controls.
Access reviews are painful, error-prone and lengthy.