Real-Time Segregation of Duties Violation Detection Engine
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current segregation of duties (SoD) tools are static, failing to detect real-time violations in business-critical applications due to dynamic changes in user permissions, leading to potential fraud and abuse, as they rely on periodic checks and misconfigurations.
Innovation Solution
A system that monitors network traffic to detect and prevent SoD violations in real-time by analyzing user interactions through application-specific protocols, using a Segregation of Duties conflict detection engine that alerts on conflicts defined in SoD matrices, providing both preventive and detective approaches to ensure compliance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If periodic checks are used to detect SoD violations, then the system is easier to implement and maintain, but real-time detection capability is lost leading to delayed violation detection
Solution Approach 1:
The system transitions from static periodic checks to dynamic real-time monitoring by continuously capturing and analyzing user actions as they occur. The monitor captures actions from business-critical applications in real-time, and the detection engine immediately evaluates these actions against SoD rules, ensuring violations are detected at the moment they occur rather than at scheduled intervals.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements continuous feedback loops where user actions are captured, evaluated against SoD rules, and results are immediately reported. The monitor continuously feeds action data to the detection engine, which provides real-time feedback on compliance status, enabling immediate corrective action when violations are detected.
2Use of energy by moving object
If static SoD analysis is performed periodically, then computational resources are conserved, but the system cannot detect dynamic violations caused by changing user permissions
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-loading SoD rules and conflict matrices into the detection engine before runtime. This allows the engine to quickly evaluate captured actions against pre-configured rules without performing complex analyses in real-time, thus maintaining low computational resource consumption while achieving high detection accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The monitor automatically captures user actions from business-critical applications without requiring manual intervention. The detection engine autonomously evaluates captured actions against SoD rules and generates compliance reports, eliminating the need for periodic manual analysis and reducing overall computational resource requirements.
3Measurement precision
If comprehensive monitoring of all user actions is implemented, then detection accuracy is improved, but system complexity and processing overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts only the essential elements needed for SoD compliance monitoring: specific user actions from business-critical applications and relevant SoD rules. By filtering and extracting only the critical data elements rather than monitoring all system activity, the system maintains high detection accuracy while reducing processing overhead and simplifying the monitoring architecture.
Solution Approach 2:
The monitoring system is segmented into distinct functional components: an action capture module that intercepts user actions, a detection engine that evaluates compliance, and a reporting module that generates results. This segmentation allows each component to specialize in its specific task, improving detection accuracy while managing system complexity through modular design.
4Reliability
If real-time monitoring of all user actions is implemented, then SoD violations are detected immediately, but processing time and system resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The detection engine pre-loads SoD rules, conflict matrices, and user permission data into memory before runtime. This preliminary preparation allows the engine to immediately evaluate captured actions against pre-configured rules without performing complex database queries or rule compilations in real-time, thus achieving immediate violation detection with minimal processing time.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the state of SoD rules and conflict data from persistent storage to in-memory representations, transforming them into optimized data structures suitable for rapid comparison. This parameter change from disk-based to memory-based storage enables real-time evaluation of user actions against SoD rules with minimal processing overhead.
Data Source
AI summary
A system is configured for real time detection and prevention of segregation of duties violations in business-critical applications. The system includes a software application monitor, a Segregation of Duties (SoD) conflict detection engine, a processor and a memory. The software application monitor configured to monitor an action executed by a user in the software application in real-time. The SoD conflict detection engine receives an action notification from the software application monitor having an action and an associated user, and determines whether the action is associated with a conflict in a conflict rule database. The engine looks up the user and action and determines if the user has permission to execute the action and/or if the user has previously executed the action, and if so outputs a preventive alert indicating a segregation of duties violation.