Fine-Grained Access

Exclusive Mapping to the user entitlements, as per defined policies and attributes

What is Fine-Grained Access Control?

Fine-Grained Access Control, a dimension of Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC), facilitates granting access rights to a user of the organization based on defined attributes and roles. This control ensures that the system checks against the user’s rights, granting him access to the information only to which they are entitled.

Why is Fine-Grained Access Control Important?

Information in every aspect of its nature is an essential asset for an organization’s functioning and well-being. With the advancement of technology and the scope of growth within, it is crucial to keep track of the network’s database access points. Any discrepancy may result in either a massive loss of sensitive information vital to the organization or economic losses. Hence it is imperative to implement stringent access controls to restrict and control access to information both inbound and outbound to the network.

Fine-Grained Access Control enables users to access each of the data items using policies and attributes rather than being defined by roles. It ensures that the difficulty of managing granular access for every role is avoided/minimized and instead encourages the mapping of entitlements exclusively to the user. For example, if we want to delegate a database to the development team, a group-specific to developers and a policy with suitable access would be created to direct them towards the resource and provide them with the necessary read/write access. The Access Controls are defined in a way where entitlements based on the user and role can be allowed or restricted appropriately.

Attribute-Based Access Control, a Fine-Grained Access Solution, also known as Policy-Based Access Control, is an authorization method where users are granted access rights through policies defined in combination with attributes. Attributes may range from the user, object, subject, action, resources, and environmental attributes and help set a contextual and dynamic ecosystem driving a seamless access flow.

Fine-Grained Access Control considers a wide variety of parameters. It defines targeted policies based on the user’s ecosystem of attributes while ensuring that granular privileges are adopted and fine-tuned continually to minimize any unnecessary risk.

Fine-Grained Access Control is flexible and dynamic, ensuring that the access to each user is confined to their requirement and limited to the user’s policy rights to avoid any inadvertent disclosure of sensitive information.

How is Fine-Grained Access Control Used?

Some of the most common scenarios for fine-grained access control are:

Multiple Levels of Access

One of the essential benefits of fine-grained access control is that it allows for different levels of access instead of a simple pass/fail approach. For example, if we want to delegate a database to the development team, a group-specific to developers and a policy with the proper access would be created to direct them towards the resource and provide them with the necessary read/write access. The Access Controls are defined in a way where entitlements based on the user and role can be allowed or restricted appropriately.

Diverse Data Sources Clubbed Together

Large segments of different data types in the cloud are stored in one place. In many scenarios, a third party may want to access some of the assets of a B2B business stored in the cloud without compromising security or risking accidental changes to data. You can’t just grant wholesale access to your storage segments. Fine-grained access control can allow enterprises to give read-only access to third parties, securing their data.

Securing Mobile Access

More and more companies are enabling support to access data remotely via mobile devices. As people work from home and at differing hours, the standard workday is being extended. Organizations may want to implement access controls that are not just role/identity based but also time/location based.

Fine-grained access control can allow this. For instance, you may limit access permissions to a specific location. This way, employees can’t access data from third-party wireless servers that could be vulnerable to breaches.

What are Fine-Grained and Coarse-Grained Access Controls?

What is Fine-Grained Access Control?

Data in coarse-grained systems may be either permitted or forbidden — based on who wants to access it. On the other hand, fine-grained access control (as we have learned) offers room for a bit more variation and subtlety.

How Does Sectona Help?

Sectona Privileged Access Management provides an in-built capability of fine-grained access control that helps the user access resources via a configurable repository of access policies and attributes. A preview of allocating granular access to each privileged user to target assets in the organization has been detailed below.