May 17, 2024 1:25:51 PM EDT | Blog 6 Things to Know about Active Directory and Data Risk

Discover the essential aspects of Active Directory and data risk in this informative blog post. Explore 6 key points to enhance your understanding and strategies.

Strong controls on Active Directory (AD) policies and objects positively impact many security work streams, as they are critical for access provisioning and setting enterprise policies. A lack of deep visibility into AD creates significant gaps in many critical governance, risk, and compliance initiatives. Here’s what you need to know about Active Directory risk:

1. Active Directory is the Mechanism for Enterprise Access

Access governance starts with gaining better control over Active Directory, which begins with establishing necessary policies. AD serves as the backbone for enterprise access, making its management vital for securing IT assets.

2. Control Standards Need to Be Your Baseline

Control standards define what constitutes a properly created structure and are crucial for building a baseline that drives remediation efforts. Establishing these standards is the first step toward effective AD management.

3. Documented Controls Are Foundational

Having definitive, documented controls is always the initial stage for implementing governance. These controls provide a foundation that stops the bleeding and sets the stage for further improvements.

4. One Word: Standardization

The ability to create clear definitions of what was successfully remediated during campaign cycles relies on a well-articulated and documented set of standards. Standardization ensures consistency and clarity in remediation efforts.

5. Gap Analysis Can Drive a Future State

Identifying current gaps in AD management that are not documented helps address the proliferation of issues. Guidelines can be put in place to resolve these gaps, driving compliance with new standards and allowing for standardization.

6. Enforcement Requires Policy Management

Without clear, written, and published policies, enforcing governance is directly impacted. Lack of policy management leads to significant pushback and makes it difficult to achieve effective remediation rates. Clear policies are essential for successful enforcement and governance.

Existing issues will only proliferate without documented and socialized standards, adding to the risk of a security incident. Consider the controls, standards, and policies you have in place—or lack thereof. SPHERE can help you identify and manage gaps to kick-start your governance and compliance initiatives.

Speak with an expert to learn more about SPHEREboard's role in Active Directory governance

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Rosario Mastrogiacomo

Written By: Rosario Mastrogiacomo

Rosario Mastrogiacomo is the Vice President of Engineering for SPHERE, where he focuses on solving complex security and infrastructure problems involving the processing and analysis of large data sets to find creative and out-of-box thinking solutions. Rosario has been working as a technology leader for over 25 years at financial organizations such as Neuberger Berman, Lehman Brothers, and Barclays. He has held various senior leadership positions including Global Head of Core Software Engineering, Head of Mac Platform Engineering, Global Head of Windows Engineering, and Windows Support Manager. Rosario has built and managed several teams within these positions, some with multi-million-dollar budgets. For the last eight years at SPHERE, Rosario has built the team and methodologies for the development of SPHEREboard. Rosario holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Baruch College (CUNY).