RBAC Explained: Role-Based Access Control in Active Directory

Role-based access control or RBAC is an access control model that works by grouping together IT privileges for users with similar access needs, such as those working in the same department.

Instead of assigning permissions individually to each employee, RBAC recognizes that employees with the same job typically need access to the same apps and information. This allows you to simplify your provisioning process, saving time and preventing mistakes.

In order to use role-based access control, organizations first have to create permission roles that define the intended privileges for users in different departments, locations or positions. Once these roles have been established, new users that join the organization simply have to be added to the right role to receive all permissions that go along with it.

Likewise, if a user changes role – for example because they switch departments or leave the org – they automatically lose all associated privileges.

Designing your own permission roles is often seen as the biggest barrier to using RBAC, since this step cannot be (fully) automated. However, creating roles is not as difficult as it might sound. There are two important things to know: First, use roles to group together users with similar access needs. Second, use as many roles as necessary, but try to keep the system lean and efficient.

Many businesses base roles on their organizational structure and factors such as branch/location, department/team and position/rank. However, this is far from the only approach role-based access control. The important part is that you find a model that works for you.

Creating permission roles in 5 steps:

Important: Keep in mind that the roles you create for RBAC need to follow the principle of least privilege and segregation of duties. Your users should only receive permissions that are strictly necessary for their job. Overprivileged users increase the risk of employee data theft and the damage caused by cyberattacks and account compromise.

By allowing enterprises to assign privileges automatically based on a user’s role in the organization, RBAC offers many advantages in terms of efficiency, accuracy and security.

The benefits of role-based access control include:

Implementing RBAC has many clear benefits, making it a net positive for most organizations. However, it’s important to understand the downsides of this model to avoid potential pitfalls during implementation. Knowing these weaknesses ahead of time allows you to plan around and counteract them.

Disadvantages of role-based access control are:

Microsoft’s recommended approach for implementing role-based access control in Active Directory environments is known as the AGDLP principle, short for “account, global, domain local, permission”.

AGDLP is based on multiple levels of nested AD groups: First, you create global user groups that represent the different roles in your organization: Sales, Marketing, Accounting etc. Next, you add these global user groups to local permission groups, each of which controls access to one specific directory or resource. For example: You might have one group that grants read access to the Finance folder on your file server and another that grants write access to customer support tickets.

When a user is added to a global role group, they also become a member of the permission groups nested within it and automatically receive access to the intended resources. By using clear names for the permission groups, AGDLP also allows admins to easily see which privileges are part of a particular role group. If you granted access directly to the global user group, this would be a lot harder to keep track of.

Implementing an AD group structure that follows the AGDLP principle is essential in order to use role-based access control in Active Directory. But there is one big problem: Creating and managing the necessary groups takes a lot of time and effort, not to mention a very precise and consistent approach to naming and usage conventions.

While this effort eventually pays off by allowing you to largely automate AD provisioning and user management, it is still a huge barrier to implementing AGDLP and RBAC. Which is why manual group management is actually not recommended: It is far easier to create and maintain the required AD structures through an IAM solution that automates the entire process and lets you focus on what’s important.

tenfold, our revolutionary no-code IAM platform makes it fast and easy to roll out role-based access control across Active Directory, Microsoft 365 and a wide range of business apps. tenfold helps you choose which permissions to include in different roles by analyzing the existing access of your users. It also automates AGDLP by creating the necessary groups and structures for you.

This way, you benefit from every advantage of RBAC without suffering the disadvantages like difficult role modeling or limited flexibility. From role mining to centralized permission reporting, regular access reviews and a self-service platform for requesting additional permissions, tenfold supports you across all levels of successful Active Directory administration.

The best part? Thanks to our no-code approach to access governance, tenfold can be implemented in a fraction of the time it would take to set up comparable solutions. Simple, effective and easy to use – all this and more makes tenfold the ideal access management solution for your business!