Automate User Account Management

Managing your IT system security requires a detailed understanding of the users involved and their levels of access to resources. User account management is all about managing which users can access specific folders and files, which requires providing specific credentials to users needing privileged access.

In today’s IT landscape, account management revolves around two credentialing tools: Microsoft Active Directory and Azure Active Directory (AD). Both services allow central IT management to establish access tiers, set credentials for systems access, and create or delete user accounts.

User account management also refers to the processes made possible through automated software. With only native Active Directory controls, AD account management can be time-consuming. However, automated tools can help take security further with streamlined options for effective and efficient credentials management. To improve security and efficiency, automated user access management can help you modify user accounts using preconfigured templates and automatically record reports for successful IT security audits—in addition to other access management services. Account management software allows you to maximize the security of your user access structure while automating as many capabilities as possible.

User management is crucial for ensuring system security. Without effective user account management, systems can be compromised by unauthorized users accessing sensitive data or cyberattacks exploiting overly permissive access credentials. Access control helps optimize security by restricting sensitive parts of the system to privileged groups and closely monitoring user access. Access managers can swiftly delete or reassign the account if an unusual or over-privileged account is detected. Additionally, user access control software enhances the management of Active Directory and Azure AD, providing centralized controls for increasingly safe and reliable user account management.

User management encompasses various tasks that help ensure secure and efficient handling of user accounts within a system. Here are some key examples:

• Adding a User Account: When onboarding a new employee, quickly create an account with appropriate access rights, ensuring they have the necessary permissions from day one.
• Editing User Accounts: Modify user information or access levels as roles change, such as updating permissions when an employee is promoted or transferred to a different department.
• Deleting User Accounts: When an employee leaves the organization, promptly remove their account to prevent unauthorized access and protect sensitive information from former users.
• Password Management: Reset user passwords to maintain security, especially if a password is forgotten or compromised.
• Access Control: Assign and manage user roles to ensure only authorized personnel can access sensitive data, enhancing overall system security.
• Monitoring and Auditing: Keep a close eye on user activities, detect unusual behavior, and generate audit reports for compliance and security reviews.

Best practices in user account management help IT teams streamline operations, support effective business processes, and enhance security across the organization.

The following best practices are just a few you can use for more successful user accounts management:

• Principle of Least Privilege: Users are only granted permissions essential for their work. For instance, users may receive view-only access instead of full edit permissions. This minimizes risk in the event of an account breach.
• Data Ownership: Delegating account management responsibilities to end users for lower-level tasks can improve client satisfaction and reduce the IT workload. Users can manage access to their assets, enhancing efficiency and accountability.
• Ongoing Monitoring and Adjustments: Regularly monitor access credentials for anomalies, such as inactive or empty groups and users with excessive privileges. Adjust configurations to maintain security and efficiency, removing insecure or unnecessary access rights.

User account management tools are designed to help streamline and secure your Active Directory account management. Ultimately, the goal of account management software is to protect the integrity of your system without any downtime when monitoring and reconfiguring user accounts in AD by leveraging visualizations, controls, and automation.

With account management software, you can adjust access criteria from a centralized dashboard with visualizations of your system setup. User access management tools can also help you visualize the structure of an access group more easily, quickly change usernames and create new users, and operate an easy-to-understand account management regimen without the need to sift through lines of script.

Another primary service of account access management software is its ability to produce automated AD reports. Many industry compliance standards require detailed reports on your users and their access credentials. Account management software can provide templates for specific audit report formats, so you can automatically generate security reports to demonstrate to auditors that your AD system complies with the particular industry’s standards.

SolarWinds Access Rights Manager (ARM) is built to provide a centralized access management tool for efficient user account management. When you invest in ARM, you gain access to a highly intuitive visual tool for viewing and adjusting user credentials quickly.

With grouping visualization, ARM lets you view your groups in a tree format to understand the structure of privileged access within your groups immediately. To identify users with over-privileged access to multiple groups, ARM can filter users using data collected from their average Kerberos token size, establishing a standard measure for how many groups each user belongs to.

ARM provides an automated approach to Active Directory and Azure AD reporting to demonstrate compliance during industry security audits. The reporting software allows you to report account management data within your industry-specific format for HIPAA, PCI, and SOX regulations.

Managing user access credentials is a crucial aspect of your work as an IT admin. Without a comprehensive access management protocol, your users may be able to access sensitive information far above their necessary level of operations. To prevent internal security breaches and to improve communication efficiency, user access management tools like ARM can play a significant role in your approach to systems administration.

Other SolarWinds IT security tools:

• Security Event Manager
• Patch Manager
• Observability Self-Hosted and Security Observability

Other features:

• Active Directory Auditing
• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
• NTFS Permissions Management
• NTFS Permissions Report
• Cybersecurity Risk Management
• Automated User Provisioning

Related IT Glossaries:

• What Is Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)?
• What are Active Directory Groups?
• What Is an Access Control List (ACL)?
• What Is Network Access Control?