Access reviews are crucial in maintaining security and compliance and are a vital part of the audit process. But these reviews are about more than proving a company is compliant; they are also a guardrail, ensuring that only the individuals and machines that require access rights to sensitive systems and data have it. From preventing unauthorized access to ensuring regulatory compliance, the audit process is essential in safeguarding sensitive information. As auditors, conducting thorough and effective user access reviews falls within our purview, necessitating a detailed understanding of the processes, challenges, and best practices involved. After over a decade of auditing large and small organizations, here are tips to smooth the audit process and keep your organization safe.
Start by Building a Positive Relationship with Auditors — Early
It’s essential to view auditors as partners rather than adversaries. Auditors are there to help identify and mitigate risks, not just to find faults. Clear communication and transparency are key to this process, and a good auditor will have collaborative conversations to understand how an organization works, for example, I ask clients questions like:
- How do you handle user access?
- How do you onboard people?
- Who is responsible for revoking access?
- How do you remove people?
- What are your change management processes?
These initial collaborative conversations are important in identifying gaps. At that point, auditors can have open conversations with clients, much like consultants, to discuss the gaps and how to fix them. But these conversations need to happen far ahead of the audit. When the audit starts, it’s time to turn off the consultant hat and go into formal audit mode.
One effective strategy is to conduct readiness engagements, which prepare your team for what auditors look for, minimizing surprises and aligning expectations.
Conduct Regular Access Reviews
The process of conducting regular user access reviews is really about mitigating risk. When you think about the control process, it’s often entirely linked to disjointed access control methods. Application admins, often scattered across an organization, give access privileges to these applications, often based on roles or permissions. The problem is that in high-growth companies these access rights are administered by multiple people, in multiple parts of the company, with very little oversight. And there is typically a high number of new people joining or leaving the organizations, as well as a significant percentage changing departments. This leaves the door wide open to human error and unauthorized access, especially in growing organizations where there is constant movement.
Regular and automated user access reviews catch common errors, mitigating risk, and preventing issues before it’s time for an official audit where any errors become part of the record.
Having a clear user access review checklist can ensure unauthorized access is prevented or revoked while maintaining an employee’s ability to perform their duties without restriction. The historical record of employee access changes over time retains the chain of custody needed by those responsible for data security.
Understand the Essential Elements of Access Reviews
A successful user access review process hinges on several critical elements. First, ensure your access report review covers all relevant systems and applications, including non-human accounts like service accounts. These are often overlooked but can present significant risks if not properly managed. Thorough documentation is also crucial. It’s important to clearly document who conducted the review, what was reviewed, when it took place, and how the review was carried out. This level of detail makes for a smoother audit process and also ensures internal accountability.
The frequency of access reviews should align with your organization’s risk profile. While quarterly reviews are generally recommended, high-growth companies with frequent personnel changes may need to review user access rights more frequently to avoid potential security issues.
Prevent Common Challenges
Subjectivity in audits can lead to inconsistent results, but don’t let this become a negative factor in the process. Different access permissions auditors may have different expectations, so this is where early, proactive discussions are important. Providing clear and comprehensive documentation supporting your user access review policy and decisions is another important step to prevent problems later in the process.
One way to do so is to use documentation from the user access review process. Companies like Zilla provide this as part of their platform. Another challenge is ensuring that access data for all relevant accounts, not just privileged ones, are included in the review. Neglecting to review regular user accounts, service accounts, or shared accounts can leave your organization vulnerable and will also be flagged by auditors.
Leverage Technology for Accurate Access Reviews
Tools like those Zilla Security offers can streamline and automate user access reviews. The platform automates reviews across all of a company’s applications, both on-premise and in the cloud. This removes human error and creates a single source of truth to optimize and document the process for access reviews and overall user access management.
Next Steps for Seamless Reviews
Get a demo of Zilla Security’s IGA platform to see how it helps you navigate the complexities of how to automate user access reviews and ensure your organization remains secure and compliant.
