Role mining is the process of analyzing an organization’s existing access assignments to discover and define security roles. These roles help streamline access management by grouping users with similar access needs based on their job functions, locations, or responsibilities. Properly defined roles ensure that users are granted the least privilege necessary to perform their tasks, reducing the risk of over-provisioning and security vulnerabilities.
For large organizations, manually managing user access individually can be costly, inefficient, and prone to errors. Role mining automates this process by identifying patterns in user access and creating roles that align with organizational needs. This helps organizations maintain compliance, optimize access control, and reduce administrative workloads.
Role Mining and Optimization
EmpowerID's approach to role mining is rooted in Compliant Access by design is the capability to map out in advance the position Design, a strategy that ensures organizations can map out appropriate access for employees, partners, and customers and the risk policies that will measure and ensure continued compliance. Defining position appropriate access for a large organization can be a daunting task and can lead to project delays. However, without this guideline IT organizations are forced to resort to in advance. This proactive approach reduces the need for costly and inefficient manual processes, which create can lead to security vulnerabilities . EmpowerID’s and project delays.
The EmpowerID Role Mining engine solves this challenge by recommending an optimal initial set of roles , based on the a combination an organization’s existing of HR job position data as well as and existing access assignments. Once These initial roles are established, they immediately begin to evolve due dynamic and evolve in response to changes in the business environment, such as re-organizations, mergers and acquisitionsreorganizations or mergers. EmpowerID’s role optimization functionality assists with maintaining roles and ensuring that they grant the optimal least privilege accessfurther ensures that roles are aligned with the least privilege principle, maintaining compliance and minimizing security risks.
To implement Compliant Access effectively, EmpowerID relies on external sources of business role data, which serve as the foundation for role mining.
Leverage Existing Sources of Business Role
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Infomation
Establishing Business Roles business roles and organizational locations is usually the starting point for many EmpowerID projects. The best sources for this data are usually an organization’s essential in implementing Compliant Access. EmpowerID simplifies this process by leveraging data from HR or Human Capital Management system (HCM) systems and Active Directory. HR systems such as Systems like Workday, SuccessFactors, or SAP HCM maintain a rough organization structure and the positions occupied by all employees to get the analysis rolling. EmpowerID’s out of the box connector model inventories these “external roles” and locations and which users are assigned to each. Once this data resides within the EmpowerID system, it can be used to generate store valuable organizational structures and employee position data, which EmpowerID uses to perform its analysis.
EmpowerID inventories external roles and user assignments through out-of-the-box connectors, generating an initial Business Role and organization organizational location tree for “top down analytical” role mining analysis. This information also becomes a key driver later once roles are defined and access policies assigned to ensure continuous Compliant Access Delivery as changes in the authoritative system will trigger reevaluation and adjustment of Compliant Access for each user without the laborious and expensive manual administration. In addition, EmpowerID performs SOD simulation during role design to ensure proposed roles have no inherent SOD conflicts.
“Top Down Analytical” Role Mining
“Top Down Analytical” Role Mining is a technique invented by the EmpowerID team after many years of experience with analyzing many organizations’ security models and sources of data. Compliant Access requires that the entitlements granted are appropriate for the position. For organizations with HR systems the only maintained source for employee position information is the HR system itself. Assignment of users to positions and organizational locations will be maintained and continue to change regardless of how well role assignments are maintained in IGA. Therefore, this source of up to date data is valuable and should be used to both drive the initial determination of roles and role-based access policies as well as to maintain changes in the assignments of users to roles in whatever manner possible.
Top Down Analytical Role Mining leverages the rough skeleton of the Business Roles within the organization and the knowledge concerning which users occupy those positions within different portion of the company. In addition to this HR-related information, EmpowerID inventories all the entitlements and access assignments for each user in every system. EmpowerID then uses a sophisticated analytical technique to optimally fit existing user access assignments on the Business Role and Location tree. Once the optimal matches are identified, they can be published as role-based assignments automated by HR data.
Bottom Up Role Mining
After completing top down role mining, much of each user’s access will be delivered and controlled via Business Roles. The top down model is effective for optimizing access based on what a person does within an organization. The remaining unoptimized access assigned to users consists of less structured team or matrix-based access and exceptions. This access can also be optimized using a technique known as bottom up analytical role mining. Bottom up role mining is a multi-step process that involves creating, running and analyzing "Role Mining Campaigns." Role Mining Campaigns analyze entitlement and user data using powerful machine learning algorithms to produce optimal "candidate roles" containing combinations of people and entitlements. These are then analyzed and accepted or manipulated to create subsets of combinations. Once candidate roles are accepted, they can be published as standalone Management Roles, mapped to Business Roles and Locations or used to create new Business Roles and Locations.
Streamline Recertification
Role Mining and Optimization assists organizations by minimizing the number of security roles, reducing administrative workloads, and streamlining audit recertification campaigns. Without role optimization, managers are faced with the daunting task of certifying hundreds of individual technical entitlements per direct report. A role optimization program . This automated data-driven approach ensures continuous compliant access delivery. Any changes made in the authoritative HR system, such as role changes or promotions, automatically trigger a reevaluation of user access to ensure compliance without manual intervention.
During role design, EmpowerID also performs Separation of Duties (SoD) simulations to ensure that proposed roles do not create conflicts, further enhancing compliance and security.
With business role data in place, EmpowerID applies its sophisticated top-down role mining techniques to optimize access management.
Top-Down Analytical Role Mining
EmpowerID's Top-Down Analytical Role Mining technique analyzes organizational security models and ensures access entitlements align with business roles. This method ensures that each user’s access is appropriate for their position and that roles reflect the organization’s structure.
Top-down role mining uses data from HR systems, which are typically the primary maintained source of employee position information. Since job assignments, promotions, and organizational locations are constantly updated in these systems, EmpowerID relies on this up-to-date data to determine and maintain appropriate roles.
Top-Down Analytical Role Mining Process
EmpowerID inventories all user entitlements and access assignments across systems, not just HR, and optimally aligns them with the business role and location structure. This process involves analyzing how users' existing access fits within predefined business roles. Once EmpowerID identifies the optimal matches, these role-based assignments are published, ensuring they can be managed and updated through automation based on HR data.
Although top-down role mining covers many access assignments, bottom-up role mining, which refines more dynamic access needs, can address additional unstructured access patterns.
Bottom-Up Role Mining
While top-down role mining focuses on defining structured roles based on business functions, Bottom-Up Role Mining complements this by optimizing more fluid, unstructured access that isn’t easily categorized by traditional role definitions. This includes access related to team-based or matrix-based structures and exceptions.
EmpowerID’s machine learning algorithms drive Role Mining Campaigns, analyzing user and entitlement data to identify candidate roles. These candidate roles are reviewed, fine-tuned, and either published as Management Roles or mapped to existing business roles and locations. This step ensures that even less formalized access is controlled and optimized alongside structured business roles.
By combining top-down and bottom-up techniques, EmpowerID provides a comprehensive solution to role mining that covers all areas of user access.
Streamlining Recertification
One key advantage of EmpowerID’s role mining and optimization is its impact on recertification. After defining roles through top-down and bottom-up mining, organizations can significantly reduce the number of direct access assignments that managers must certify. This shift minimizes the administrative burden while improving overall security.
EmpowerID’s approach can reduce the number of direct assignments by up to 80% and present , presenting managers with a compact list of business-friendly roles to certify. Security becomes more manageable and the organization’s risk profile is minimizedThis streamlines the recertification process and ensures managers review roles rather than individual entitlements, making compliance much easier to maintain.
Recertification isn’t the only area where EmpowerID integrates with external systems to simplify role management. EmpowerID also supports organizations working with external role management tools, allowing for even more flexibility in managing access.
Role Modeling Inbox
For organizations working with consultants and other role modeling tools, EmpowerID supports leveraging the roles and locations designed in these systems. The Role Modeling Inbox integrates external role and access management with EmpowerID by providing a set of inboxes into which roles and access changes can be published. Configurable rules within EmpowerID determine if these upstream decisions are automatically put into effect or go through workflow approval processes before becoming active.Insert excerpt
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that work with external role management tools or consultants, EmpowerID provides the Role Modeling Inbox. This feature integrates external role designs and access changes into EmpowerID, where they are processed using configurable rules. Depending on your organization's governance needs, these changes can be automatically applied or routed through workflow approval processes.