Permission Group Scoring for Least-Privilege Access Assignment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional permission management systems assign entities with higher levels of permissions than necessary, exposing resources to security risks and increased attack surfaces.
Innovation Solution
A processor identifies historical permission usage patterns to determine the least necessary permissions for entities, calculating permutations and scores based on attack surfaces to assign minimal privilege levels, thereby reducing attack surfaces and enhancing security.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If entities are assigned higher levels of permissions to ensure adequate access, then operational capability is improved, but security risk and attack surface increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary analysis of historical permission usage data to determine the minimum necessary permissions before assigning them to entities. By analyzing past usage patterns, the system pre-calculates the optimal permission set that balances operational needs with security requirements, preventing over-assignment of permissions before they can create security risks.
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors and analyzes actual permission usage feedback to refine and adjust permission assignments. By comparing assigned permissions against actual usage patterns, the system identifies and corrects excessive permission grants, dynamically optimizing the balance between operational capability and security risk reduction.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If comprehensive permission analysis is performed to minimize attack surfaces, then security is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The permission management system performs self-service analysis by automatically evaluating historical usage data, calculating permission permutations, and determining optimal assignments without requiring manual intervention. The system autonomously analyzes its own operational data to identify and reduce attack surfaces, eliminating the need for complex manual security audits while maintaining comprehensive security coverage.
3Reliability
If permission assignments are optimized based on actual usage, then resource security is improved, but measurement and analysis requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system replaces manual security auditing mechanisms with automated computational analysis. Instead of requiring manual review of permission usage patterns, the system uses algorithmic processing to automatically detect, measure, and optimize permission assignments based on historical data, significantly reducing the difficulty of measurement while improving security reliability.
Data Source
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AI summary
According to examples, an apparatus may include a processor that may identify activities of an entity on resources over a predetermined period of time, in which the entity is to use permissions assigned to the entity over the resources to perform the identified activities. The processor may also identify which of a plurality of groups of permissions includes the permissions the entity used to perform the identified activities and may determine permutations of the identified plurality of groups of permissions. The processor may further calculate respective scores for each of the determined permutations to identify permutations of the groups of permissions having the lowest scores and may output information pertaining to the determined permutations having the lowest scores.