Every day, businesses face the challenge of ensuring the right people have the right access to the right systems at the right time. Access certification, also referred to as access review, is an important tool to address this challenge. It answers the following three vital questions:
✅ Who has access?
✅ What access do they have?
✅ Do they still need that access?
It is not just about compliance — it’s also about protecting sensitive data, reducing risks, and empowering teams with accurate and secure access to do their jobs effectively.
Access certifications sound simple, right? Just launch a campaign, let managers approve or revoke access, and you’re done. But it’s not as simple as it sounds. Managing access certifications across large and complex IT landscape can be very complex and requires lots of time and effort.
How are Access Certifications Performed?
A typical access certification consists of the following key activities:
- Planning: deciding what needs to be reviewed (in terms of systems, users and entitlements), who needs to review, when to perform the review, and how long should the review take
- Preparation: once the plan is ready, and before the review is performed, the review data needs to be prepared. This requires preparing reports showing what access in-scope users have in in-scope systems at the point of time.
- Performing Review: reports are sent to the reviewers for their review and the reviewers decide whether the access is appropriate. Reviewers provide their decisions.
- Access Removal: access identified as inappropriate are removed from the users.
- Closure: detailed reports with the details related to the scope, reviewer, timelines, decisions and access removal is prepared for audit trail and compliance purposes.
What are the Challenges with Access Certifications?
User access reviews are essential for ensuring compliance and protecting sensitive data. However, performing them infrequently or inconsistently is a critical mistake that could expose your organization to undetected risks. Some of the common issues related to access certification are as follows:
❌ Lack of Visibility – It is not easy to get complete visibility of user access and therefore it can be time consuming to collate user access across various IT systems. Even if this is managed, the entitlement structure in various IT systems may differ and therefore, presentation of this information to the reviewer in a user-friendly manner is challenging. And by the time, these reports are collated and sent for review, the access may already be outdated!
❌ Infrequent reviews – Access certifications are usually conducted long after changes occur, which is often too late. And therefore, any inappropriate access may linger around for a long period before they are identified and removed.
❌ Incorrect reviewers – Correct stakeholders aren’t always involved in the access certifications, causing incomplete or inaccurate reviews. If the stakeholders are too high up in the organization hierarchy, they may not be aware of the actual access required by the users. And if they are too close to the users, they may be reluctant to remove access from the user. Also, since no one enjoys performing access reviews, the assigned reviewers may just accept incorrect access instead of checking with the ‘correct person’. It is also common for the reviews to be delegated to people who may not be in a position to make the correct decisions.
❌ Rubber-Stamping – One of the effects of the general perception that access reviews are a ‘compliance exercise’ is that reviewers approve access without really checking if such access is still required. They think it is just a ‘check in the box’ and often fail to understand that access review is a key part of the internal control framework for any organization.
Access Certification Good Practices
Given the importance of Access Certification, it is imperative that it is effective. And given that it can be time consuming, it is equally important that it is performed efficiently. Here are some of the key considerations when planning access certification campaigns:
✔ Set Regular and Frequent Access Reviews – Schedule quarterly or biannual access reviews instead of annual reviews to ensure it is not too late and that it is not ‘too much’ for reviewers to review. Consider more frequent review of privileged or sensitive access.
✔ Perform Event-based Access Reviews – Ensure that any modifications to the user job roles responsibilities trigger an immediate access review (rather than waiting for the next access review cycle).
✔ Involve Correct Stakeholders – While it may be difficult to always get the best person to perform the access review, at least provide the identified reviewers a platform that makes it easier for them to seek feedback and inputs from relevant stakeholders, where required. For example, if the reviewer is a Head of Department and is not aware if a person needs certain access, he or she should be able to easily delegate/ assign the review to the user’s immediate manager.
✔ Automate – Leverage IAM tools to automate the access certification process, making it more efficient and reducing human error. IAM solutions provide a centralized and complete visibility of user access across the IT systems, thus eliminating the time-consuming work of manually collating the access information. It also makes for a better user experience by providing an easy interface to perform access certifications, reducing the reviewer’s resistance.
⚠ Remember, inconsistent, incomplete, delayed or ineffective access reviews lead to privilege creep, wherein users retain access, they no longer need. Regular and thorough reviews are essential to reduce unnecessary access. Implementing best practices for user access certifications enhances security by identifying unauthorized access, ensures compliance with regulations, improves accountability through clear logs, and increases operational efficiency with streamlined processes. Additionally, it helps manage risks by promptly addressing access issues.
