Controlled Access to Confidential Data Is Crucial

Controlled Access to Confidential Data Is Crucial

Access control to data is vital if your business has confidential or proprietary information. Access control is essential for any business that has employees who connect to the Internet. Daniel Crowley, IBM’s X Force Red team head of research, explains that access control is a means to selectively restrict information to specific individuals and under specific conditions. There are two key components: authorization and authentication.

Authentication is the process of verifying that the person you are trying to gain access to is who they claim to be. It also involves the verification of using a password, or other credentials that are required before granting access to a system, network, application, file or system.

Authorization refers to the granting of access based on a certain function in the business like engineering, HR or marketing. The most effective and common method of limiting access is to use access control based on role. This type of access involves policies that specify the information needed for certain tasks in business and assign permissions to the appropriate roles.

If you have a standard access control policy in place it technologyform com is much simpler to manage and monitor changes as they occur. It is important that policies are clearly communicated to staff to encourage them to be cautious when handling sensitive information. Also, there should be procedures in place for revoking access to employees who leave the company, change roles, or are terminated.