Introducing SAP Access Governance

Most organizations have challenges centered on several critical objectives that impact or severely limit their ability to manage access governance effectively:

• How do we manage digital identities effectively across hybrid IT environments?
• How do we identify and remedy access issues and segregation of duty conflicts to minimize overall risk?
• How do we ensure timely, effective user provisioning, deprovisioning, and reduce manual tasks?
• How do we ensure compliance with legal, regulatory, and policy requirements and ensure compliance?
• How do we support the end-user population in balancing compliance requirements with end-user access needs?

Effective access governance must strike a delicate balance between openness and security: on one hand, it is about providing users with the access they need. On the other hand, it is about managing user access according to the principles of access governance to minimize any risks associated with the access granted.

Users' access to the systems and resources needed to perform their jobs evolves constantly as technologies and platforms change.

With these new platforms, come new security and compliance challenges. Organizations need end-to-end solutions that support the identity lifecycle across multiple environments, platforms, and device types and effective access governance processes and procedures.

The objectives of access governance include:

1. Ensuring that only authorized users can access sensitive data and systems by defining and enforcing access controls.
2. Streamlining the process of granting and revoking access to resources within an organization to maintain security and compliance.
3. Identifying and mitigating risks related to unauthorized access and data breaches.
4. Maintaining compliance with regulations and policies related to data access and privacy, such as GDPR, HIPAA, and SOX.
5. Improving operational efficiency by automating access provisioning and deprovisioning processes.
6. Providing transparency and accountability in access management by maintaining detailed access logs and audit trails.
7. Facilitating the collaboration and sharing of resources within an organization while maintaining security and privacy.

The key elements of a successful Access Governance strategy are outlined as follows:

• Risk Analysis: Risk analysis is critical to ensuring that an organization understands the risks in its application environments and can identify when mitigating controls must be implemented to reduce them. Real-time analysis capabilities must be incorporated into user and role management processes. This ensures that no single user can carry out actions that could lead to fraud or errors within the organization.
• User Provisioning: The access provisioning and deprovisioning processes must be effective and efficient and provide for all necessary review and approval. This involves granting users access when they join the organization and removing access when they leave or change roles. It manages user access and permissions based on their organizational roles and responsibilities. Risk must be identified before provisioning into productive environments and mitigated with appropriate controls.
• Role Maintenance: Role design and maintenance activities must support a business, activity, and/or task-based design process that can be managed centrally and compliantly.
• Access Review: Regular review and certification of user access to ensure that employees only have access to the resources they need for their job roles. Access to systems, functions, and segregation of duties and activities must be reviewed regularly to minimize risk exposure.
• Monitoring Access: Auditing and Reporting: Regular monitoring and reporting on user access to identify any unauthorized or suspicious activities. Risk must be monitored regularly so risk owners know when and how often critical access or segregation of duty access violations occur. Emergency access must be managed and monitored to ensure compliance.

These capabilities must extend to the organization's application environment, whether it operates On-Premise, in the cloud, or both.

SAP Access Governance and Control delivers a suite of products and solutions that support comprehensive access governance throughout the digital identity lifecycle. SAP products for access governance include:

• SAP GRC Access Control
• SAP Identity Management
• SAP Cloud Platform Identity Authentication Service
• SAP Cloud Platform Identity Provisioning Service
• SAP Cloud Identity Access Governance

These products enable organizations to implement a unified enterprise approach to access governance for all business applications, both On-Premise and in the Cloud.

You will discover details about these products in the following units and lessons.

You can now describe the concept of Access Governance and its purpose. You are also aware of the SAP product offer for Access Governance.