ABAC vs. RBAC: A Comparison

 In organizations, users of the network must be authenticated and authorized before accessing the system. This is especially the case for parts of the system capable of contributing to security breaches. Access control is a way of ensuring that users are who they say they are and that they have adequate access to company data. There are two key methods of controlling access for systems — role-based access control (RBAC) and attribute-based access control (ABAC).

Authentication and Authorization

Authentication and authorization are two main aspects of security. After entering your credentials to log in to your computer or sign in to an app or program, the system or application undertakes authentication to determine your degree of authorization. Authorization can include what accounts you can use, what services you have access to, and what functions you are required to perform.

RBAC and ABAC's primary distinction is that RBAC offers access to services or information based on user positions. In contrast, ABAC offers access rights based on user, environment, or resource attributes. Essentially, when contemplating ABAC vs. RBAC, RBAC controls broad access throughout the enterprise, while ABAC uses a fine-grain approach.

What Is RBAC?

RBAC is a role-based control, so depending on your role in the organization, you will have different access permissions. This is defined by the administrator who sets the criteria for which role access should be given, along with which role users are allocated. Multiple functions may be delegated to one person, allowing them access to a wide variety of different files or capabilities.

With RBAC, policies do not need to be changed when a person leaves the company or changes jobs: they may be excluded from the position category or assigned to a new role. This also ensures that new hires can be given access reasonably easily, depending on the organizational position they play.

What Is ABAC?

Attribute-based access control is based on a collection of features called "attributes," which includes user attributes, environmental attributes, and resource attributes.

• User attributes include user name, position, organization, ID, and security clearance.

• The time of access, location of data, and current organizational threats constitute the environmental attributes.

• Resource attributes include items like date of development, resource owner, file name, and data sensitivity.

Essentially, ABAC has a much larger number of potential control variables than RBAC. ABAC is introduced to minimize risks related to unauthorized access, as it can monitor protection and access on a more fine-grained basis. This can reduce security problems and can also assist with auditing processes later on.

ABAC vs. RBAC

Both of these access control processes are filters, with ABAC being the most complex of the two. It is important to deploy the minimum number of RBAC and ABAC filters to structure your access and protection landscape. It will help you design your directory data and access approaches carefully to ensure that you do not use redundant filters or make things too complicated. RBAC and ABAC can be used together hierarchically, with limited access enforced by RBAC protocols and more complex access handled by ABAC. This means that the system will first use RBAC to decide who has access to the resource, followed by ABAC to determine what they can do with the resource and when they can use it. This RBAC-ABAC hybrid approach goes a long way in ensuring a dynamic data security posture for organizations.

Conclusion

When it comes to meeting mandatory compliance guidelines, it is important to prepare and track the access control processes carefully. Use a comprehensive access management framework to help you set up your access control, and periodically check your setup to ensure that it always meets your organizational needs. There are comprehensive data security and analytics solutions that can help you protect your data and ensure compliance in the best possible manner.