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5 Steps For User Access Review Best Practices

By Finosec

May 11, 2023

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User Access Reviews (UAR) are crucial for financial institutions, examiners and auditors are focusing on them, and best practices mandate managing to least privilege.   However, the process can be complicated and time-consuming. This is why it’s important to standardize and simplify the process as much as possible. Our User Access Review Best Practices white paper outlines five steps to help you achieve this.

  1. The first step is to create a system map that documents the systems in place at your institution. This map should include information such as system function, location, and who is responsible for them. By doing this, you can build a strong foundation for your UAR process.
  2. The second step is to identify the highest risk systems and begin with those. This allows you to focus on the most important elements first and work your way down.
  3. The third step is to rate the risk of each system and access level as high, medium, or low. This helps you prioritize your review schedule, ensuring that the highest risk systems are reviewed more frequently than lower-risk ones.
  4. The fourth step is to review the system access and permissions for your users. You should confirm that you are managing access according to the principle of least privilege, revoking access upon termination, and following the process of role changes.
  5. The final step is to increase your maturity in this process. As you continue to mature the UAR process, you will learn to establish standards, processes, and variances.

To make this process even easier, consider using a software platform such as Finosec User Access Reporting. This platform can import your reports and produce change reports showing you what changed between user access reviews. The platform can also highlight privileged access permissions, highlighting the highest risk functions by employee and even security group. By focusing on the highest risk and the changes, our platform can increase the effectiveness of your review and significantly reduce the amount of time associated with completion.

By following these steps, you can simplify the UAR process and ensure that your organization is secure. To learn more about each step in detail, download our User Access Review Best Practices white paper today.

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Access management is a critical component of cybersecurity and compliance, especially for financial institutions where security expectations are paramount. The challenges surrounding permissions management, particularly during user access reviews, are increasing due to regulatory expectations and the complexity of banking applications. In this blog post, we’ll explore the regulatory expectations, common exam findings, and best practices that can help your organization manage user access effectively while adhering to the principle of least privilege – limiting user access to only the resources necessary to perform their job functions.

The Critical Link Between Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) and Access Management

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As highlighted in a recent article from the Federal Reserve, managing third-party relationships and the access associated with those relationships is a critical component of Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM). The associated access third party vendors have to banking systems is known as Access Management and is foundational for mitigating risks associated with third-party relationships. Access Management may be easy to overlook because it does not always reside with the same person or team as TPRM; making it difficult to provide critical oversight.

With increased regulatory focus, how should institutions be thinking of Access Management? Here are five steps your institution can take today to strengthen your third-party governance.

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