Centralized Access Policy Management

Deliver External Authorization Consistently in Any Environment

Data is constantly on the move, but coding access logic into every application it might touch just creates policy silos that are inconsistent, hard to manage, and scale. Machina provides a central control plane to define and programmatically enforce context-aware policies that authorize access in any environment.

Externalized Access Policy Framework

When it comes to future-proofing your business,
you can't ignore the new realities. The stakes are too high.

PERIOD 1

Understand

the Stakes

PERIOD 2

Redefine

the Rules

PERIOD 3

Externalize

Authorization

PERIOD 4

Future-Proof

Your Business

Understand the Stakes

Most organizations focus on implementing role-based authentication to govern access, but it’s no longer advisable to use authentication as a proxy for authorization, especially when addressing the new remote workforce reality and rapidly evolving regulations that need fine-grained policies. The explosion of apps handling sensitive data, coupled with the need to account for the full context of access requests, impact developers dramatically as they are challenged to produce consistent results by coding runtime access logic in every application. The static and manual nature of these implementations simply don't scale, resulting in errors, non-compliance, and obsolete policies that cause breaches.

BRENT WILLIAMS
Former CTO for Identity Solutions, Equifax
President & CEO, Euclidian Trust

HARPREET TOOR
Security Technologist, Accenture

In the screenshot of Machina Console, Data Policies tab is open to the Data Policies Builder. Here, an administrator can build policy rules based on a variety of attributes, such as user, group, device, location, IP address, specific date, time elapsed, and other advanced options. The admin can allow or deny access when the easily configurable conditions are true, allowing for either coarse or granular access policies.

Dynamic, Context-Aware, RBAC and ABAC Policy Framework

Redefine the Rules

Policy is the new perimeter around what we value, which means that access controls need to be redefined as dynamic, context-aware, and object-centric. Dynamic authorization enforces policy changes in real time, leveraging more than a user’s role. Organizations commonly rely on role-based access controls (RBAC) to secure data, but these no longer suffice in many instances. Attribute-based access controls (ABAC) consider information about subjects, objects, and the full environmental context with every authorization decision. Tying policies to the objects they secure reduces number of policies that need to be maintained.

Externalize Authorization

Machina enables you to scale your data security and access control strategy by externalizing authorization. Complex policy logic is abstracted from app code using industry-standard APIs and SDKs. Policy becomes globally defined, centrally managed, and enforceable across any environments without additional developer involvement. This offers a separation of duties: Developers can focus on creating applications, while security and privacy teams can focus on policy management.

In the screenshot of Machina Console, Data Policies tab is open to the Manage tab. Examples of policies in the list include ‘Allow Access To Single Credit Card Record’, ‘Allow Internal Employees’, ‘Confidential Data’, ‘Data Privacy - Personal Data’, ‘Data Privacy - Residency’, ‘EmployeeRecords - user consent’, ‘Global Deny’, ‘HIPAA/Healthcare’, and ‘HIPAA-Rules’. The list of data policies also includes a summary of the rules, when the policy was last updated, and the status (enabled or disabled). Other tabs include History and Simulations. Admins have the ability to run simulations, create data policy, as well as import, and export data policies.

Centralized Access Policy Management in Machina

In the screenshot of Machina Console, Data Policy applied was ‘Confidential Data’; Deny access when classification equals TopSecret; Deny access when classification equals Confidential. When user Mark attempted to access Machina secured data, Machina Decision Engine denied Mark access because his transaction contained TopSecret and Confidential attribute values.

Dynamic Policy Enforcement with Machina

Future-Proof Your Business

As data is being shared internally and externally—across disparate applications, environments, data stores, devices, and services—it is driving the need for centralized access policy management that delivers external authorization. Machina is the only attribute-based authorization engine that unifies encryption key management with dynamic policy enforcement at scale across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, enabling you to realize immediate ROI by decoupling runtime access logic from application code.

Create Your Gameplan to Centralize Access Policy Management

Before the next move catches you off guard, create a gameplan to prepare for, implement, and maintain external authorization management.

Prepare

Coding access policy logic in applications is extremely challenging and complex, and it simply doesn't scale. Are your developers able to leverage global policies that can be enforced in a consistent way across your enterprise? Is your team struggling to translate policies to code?

Implement

You've taken the fundamental steps to prepare for the game, but do your play makers⁠—security and privacy teams, architects, developers⁠—have the tools they need to succeed day after day? Don’t rely solely on authentication, authorize access to the resources you value.

Maintain

The rules of the game change constantly with little prior notice. Can you quickly adapt to change and increase the operational benefits of centralized access policy management and external authorization?