Imagine entering a cutting-edge smart home where every appliance is made to be efficient and convenient. You own an advanced security system, a smart thermostat, and even a refrigerator that orders your groceries for you. Although each device is strong, they all function separately and have unique access and payment methods.

The difficulty that many organizations now have in managing their varied application environments is reflected in this example involving smart homes. Organizations depend on specific software programs for various tasks, just as every smart device has a distinct role. The ERP might be your financial thermostat, Workday, your human capital security system, and Coupa, your procurement refrigerator.

Wouldn't it be nice to connect all those apps in one place so you can manage all your payment and access details in one place?

In this blog, we'll explore the challenges, impacts, and strategies for effectively managing diverse application environments in businesses.

The Challenge of Access Governance in a Diverse Application Environment

Fragmented User Access Management

One of the primary challenges in a diverse application environment is disconnected risk and user access management processes. Each application typically has its own user management system, authentication methods, and access control mechanisms. This fragmentation can lead to:

• Inconsistent access policies across different applications

• Difficulty in maintaining a holistic view of user access rights

• Increased complexity in managing user onboarding, offboarding, and role changes

Increased Security Risks

The use of multiple applications can inadvertently create security vulnerabilities:

• Orphaned Accounts: When employees leave the organization or change roles, their access rights may not be consistently revoked across all systems.

• Excessive Privileges: Users might accumulate unnecessary access rights over time, violating the principle of least privilege.

• Inconsistent Security Controls: Different applications may have varying levels of security controls, creating potential weak points in the overall security posture.

• Risks across the enterprise: Multiple applications make it difficult to monitor risk at the process level that cross more than one application.

Compliance Challenges

Maintaining compliance with various regulations becomes more complex in a diverse application environment:

• Audit Complexity: Auditing user access across multiple systems is time-consuming and prone to errors.

• Regulatory Requirements: Different applications may fall under different regulatory requirements, making it challenging to ensure comprehensive compliance.

• Data Privacy Concerns: With data spread across multiple systems, ensuring consistent data privacy practices becomes more difficult.

• Manual compliance and audit requirements: Without technology there will be a need to manually provide compliance and audit requirements as there is no single source of truth.

Impacts on Business Operations

Reduced Operational Efficiency

The challenges of access governance in a diverse application environment can significantly impact operational efficiency:

• Time-consuming Access Management: IT teams spend more time managing access across multiple systems, reducing their capacity for other critical tasks.

• Delayed User Provisioning: The complexity of managing access across various applications can lead to delays in granting necessary access to new employees or those changing roles.

• Inconsistent User Interface: Each application has their own application design requiring the staff to learn and manage the differences, requiring more time for training and ongoing management.

Increased Costs

The fragmented nature of access governance in this environment can lead to increased costs:

• Multiple Identity Management Solutions: Organizations spend budget on multiple identity management tools.

• Audit and Compliance Costs: The increased complexity in auditing and ensuring compliance across various systems can result in higher costs for these processes.

• Reduced Operational Efficiency: Leads to increased cost by redundant roles for different applications and time consuming management.

Risk of Data Breaches

The challenges in maintaining consistent access controls across all applications increase the risk of data breaches:

• Unauthorized Access: Inconsistencies in access management can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive information.

• Insider Threats: The difficulty in maintaining a clear overview of user access rights can make it harder to detect and prevent insider threats.

• Gaps in infrastructure: Different technologies typically have different architectures making it difficult to detect outside intrusions.

Key Components of Effective Access Governance

Centralized Access Governance Platform

Implement a policy-based system to unify access controls across diverse applications. This centralized approach enables:

• Consistent policy enforcement for user provisioning, access requests, and entitlement reviews

• Automated workflows for access approvals and recertifications

• Comprehensive visibility into user entitlements across all connected systems

SafePaaS provides a complete controls governance platform that integrates with ERP applications, IT Service Management (ITSM), and IDM/IGA data sources. It governs role-based access controls based on access policies at the fine-grained access rights level, ensuring coherent, policy-driven identity and access management across complex IT landscapes.

Policy-Based Access Control (PBAC)

Implement PBAC to simplify governance and ensure consistency across applications:

• Define and enforce access policies based on user attributes, roles, and context

• Automatically detect and prevent access risks, security incidents, and audit findings

SafePaaS offers Segregation of Duties (SoD) and Privileged Access policy management. It allows organizations to create, manage, and enforce fine-grained access policies across multiple applications, reducing the risk of unauthorized access and control violations.

Regular Fine-Grained Access Reviews

Conduct periodic reviews across all applications to:

• Identify and rectify access anomalies promptly

• Ensure compliance with regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley

• Monitor Access Risks across the entire infrastructure stack

SafePaaS provides an automated access review solution that simplifies the access review process with automated workflows for any data source. This reduces the cost of compliance and mitigates cybersecurity risks by enabling comprehensive reviews of all identities across applications and other data sources, including IDM, IGA, ITSM, databases, and servers.

Automated Provisioning and De-provisioning

Implement automated processes for granting and revoking access rights to:

• Streamline onboarding, role changes, and offboarding across all applications

• Reduce manual errors and ensure simple access management

• Provide policy analysis before access is granted

SafePaaS user access request management capabilities enable consistent, automated user lifecycle management. It allows organizations to automate role design, simulate security changes before implementation, and configure application security components based on various attributes.

Application Integration

Where possible, integrate applications to:

• Simplify access management processes

• Reduce fragmentation and improve overall system coherence

• Analyze risk across the enterprise consistently

SafePaaS offers enhanced API services and JDBC connectivity, allowing for secure data integration from various sources, including on-premise ERP databases, cloud enterprise applications, IDM systems, and ITSM platforms. This integration capability ensures a holistic view of access across the entire IT ecosystem.

Privileged Access Management

Implement strict controls for privileged user access:

• Monitor and audit privileged user activity

• Provide temporary elevated access when necessary

SafePaaS provides a secure process for controlling privileged access across multiple systems. It provides an independent system of record for privileged access, enabling pre-authorized users to request temporary elevated privileges with proper logging and reporting for management review.

Advanced Access Analytics

Leverage advanced analytics to:

• Improve the effectiveness of controls

• Provide real-time insight to mitigate emerging threats

• Optimize role design and application entitlements

SafePaaS offers Advanced Access Analytics capabilities, enabling organizations to gain actionable insights from their access data. This helps detect anomalies, identify potential risks, and make informed decisions about access governance strategies.

In Summary

The process of establishing strong Access Governance in a multi-application environment may seem challenging, but it's a critical step in mastering digital business operations. It's an investment that pays dividends in enhanced security, improved control effectiveness, and increased operational efficiency.

Don't let the complexity of your application environment become a weakness. Whether you're just beginning your access governance journey or looking to enhance your existing processes, SafePaaS provides the tools and expertise you need.

With SafePaaS, you can transform Access Governance challenges into opportunities for enhanced security, compliance, and operational efficiency.