Just-In-Time Privileges

In multi-cloud environments, it’s not possible to ringfence every application, resource, device, or user. Digital identity defines the new perimeter. The problem is that this new environment has made managing access privileges magnitudes more critical than ever before.

Here is why many in the cybersecurity community are starting to look to approaches based on zero standing privileges through the application of dynamic just-in-time privilege (JIT) grants. Where a user previously had standing access privileges that potentially extended around the clock indefinitely—even after that user had left the company—converting to JIT grants can compress that attack surface to several hours per month. These self-service JIT privileges, which are granted to users on-demand according to their role, provide ephemeral access rights that expire automatically—for instance, after a predefined time period, at the close of a timed coding session, or when an employee leaves the organization— ensures that organizations minimize attack surfaces constantly.

Today’s multi-cloud privileged access management platforms that incorporate JIT secrets provisioning capabilities and zero standing privilege (ZSP) enforcement mechanisms empower cloud infrastructure, DevOps, IT, and security teams with dynamic and intelligent privileged access administration. These solutions work on the concept of zero trust, which means no one and no thing is trusted with permanent standing access to your cloud accounts and data. Access is temporary and strictly controlled.

With JIT, elevated privileges are automatically revoked—all without admin involvement–and adds an essential layer of security to development processes without the overhead that can make certain security solutions unattractive to DevOps teams. As cloud-native entities, these solutions can support highly effective secrets governance initiatives for SMBs and enterprise-level organizations alike. What’s more, the Britive solution integrates with automation tools like Jenkins and Terraform, which enables teams to build JIT privilege and secrets grants into CI/CD processes.

True JIT Permissions for Multi-Cloud

The Britive solution is a lightweight platform that integrates with your operation critical cloud and SaaS services through an easy-to-deploy API. Users are granted the same level of access across multiple, dissimilar environments due to our unified access model. The unified access model provides visibility and control from a single pane of glass. It’s an effective, powerful way to manage users, grant and revoke privileges, and mitigate risks cross-cloud.

Here is how we do it:

  1. The Britive platform integrates with your existing solution or serves as its own out-of-the-box security management solution.
  2. The platform provides unified access management for total visibility and control cross-cloud.
  3. When registered Machine IDs and human users need to access apps or other tools, they log a request.
  4. The request is granted or denied based on each user’s credentials.
  5. By default, registered users have the least amount of privilege required to complete their daily tasks. This is especially critical for admins and cloud app developers who need elevated privileges to do their job but which can equally provide elevated risk if abused or compromised.
  6. When access is granted, the user receives a predetermined timestamp that automatically revokes access when the allotted time expires.
  7. If the user finishes the task before time expires, they can end the session by checking out.

Through this streamlined process, IT teams can enable true JIT permissions for all users. This gives organizations a position of zero standing privileges and least privilege access. As a result, teams achieve zero trust and can optimize productivity without sacrificing multi-cloud security.

Watch AWS JIT Demo:

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Britive’s just-in-time privileges fit seamlessly into your approval workflow processes, empowering users and apps with pre-authorized access privileges that expire automatically after use.

If you are interested in bolstering security, minimizing overhead, and gaining cross-cloud visibility, our team is ready to speak with you today.

Speak to one of our JIT experts today.

Related:  4 Advantages of Just In Time Privileged Access Management