Opal Security, building the next generation of identity and access
management, announced updates to its industry-first least privilege
posture management platform. Originally launched in April, it
consists of capabilities that enable security teams to better
manage identity security in a standard security workflow by
proactively, detecting, prioritizing and calibrating
over-provisioned access across organizations.
Opal has added several new features to its identity security
platform, including group optimization, which helps customers
identify and remediate identity risk inherent in broad group-based
access; irregular access, a new risk factor used in detecting and
prioritizing risky access; and native least privilege support for
Snowflake.
Group Optimization
Companies leverage groups — Okta, Microsoft Entra or Google
groups — as a simple way to provide role-based access to resources.
However, managing access via groups comes with complications.
Groups can become obsolete, the policies can be too broad, and the
sheer number of groups can become unwieldy over time. Group
optimization helps customers identify risks inherent in group-based
access, and take immediate steps to reduce the blast radius of
over-provisioned, unused and accidental membership access.
Opal’s group optimization helps teams manage group access by
detecting:
- Users in groups who are not using the group to leverage
resources over a duration of time, and who should be removed from
the group.
- Resources available to groups that no one in the group has
accessed over a duration of time, and that should be removed from
the group.
- Groups that have not been leveraged by any users over a
duration of time, and that may be deleted.
- Groups that are not following the company’s group naming
convention, and that should be re-named to align.
- Group hierarchy issues, such as deeply nested or circularly
referenced groups that should be moved out of a hierarchy to avoid
unintended access management issues.
For each group risk identified, Opal enables immediate action.
In just a couple of clicks, IAM or security teams can remove users
from groups they are not leveraging, remove resources from groups
that are not being used or convert access to just-in-time (JIT)
with an expiration date for access.
Irregular Access Opal Security’s least
privilege posture management detects and prioritizes different
types of risky access based on several factors, including permanent
access, sensitivity, unused access and access provisioned outside
of Opal.
In addition, the platform will now leverage machine learning to
identify irregular access. Access patterns that do not conform to
the usual patterns will be detected by combining several variables,
such as job function and team, nature of access, resource
attributes and access graph topology.
For example, it may detect that someone on the sales team has
access or privileges to an AWS database that is usually only given
to developers, an indication of over-privileged access that might
be accidental or nefarious.
As with all of the other risk factors, irregular access is
factored and prioritized by assigning an overall risk score, and
remediation action is recommended and achievable within two
clicks.
Native Support for Critical Data Systems
Opal Security’s first-party Snowflake integration empowers
security, infrastructure and IT teams to easily manage and
remediate access to Snowflake Roles and resources such as
databases, schemas and tables.
Snowflake’s powerful and flexible Access Controls Framework
allows administrators to set granular permission scopes with a high
degree of customizability. However, this also means administrators
must be equipped to manage complex access patterns that come with
elaborate organizational policies. This complexity can lead to
challenges when managing Snowflake instances at scale as a part of
a company’s overall security strategy. Several recent
breaches, all stemming from situations where valuable data was
accessible on Snowflake instances that did not require multifactor
authentication (MFA) have highlighted not only the challenge but
also the magnitude of the impact if critical data is leaked.
With Opal’s first-party integration, customers can key access
questions and implement and maintain least privilege in their
Snowflake environments. Opal provides the ability to see and modify
which users have access to Snowflake Roles and Securable Objects so
that teams can manage access and privileges to a granular level.
Teams can enable just-in-time access to reduce risk by shrinking
the time access is enabled and therefore potentially exploited, and
enable and enforce policies such as requiring multifactor
access.
“Our mission is to bring the best of infrastructure and security
to all of identity. With this new set of features, we empower teams
to properly mitigate more types of identity risk, move away from
point-in-time audits managed by arbitrary teams, and get to an
ongoing flow within a comprehensive security strategy,” said
Umaimah Khan, founder and CEO of Opal Security. “We believe this is
the very beginning of an overall shift toward identity being a
primary lens and focus for security teams as data and applications
spread across SaaS, cloud and self-hosted infrastructure.”
One customer who recently evaluated and selected Opal said, “We
chose Opal Security over other vendors for several reasons. Their
mature API and Terraform support enable us to manage resource
access through a codified, reviewable, and easily revertible
system. Opal’s flexible and comprehensive platform allows us to
tailor approval flows based on the risk level of a resource or the
role of the requestor, ensuring a robust and secure user
experience. Additionally, the Threat Center feature allows us to
easily monitor and reduce unused or permanent access while still
providing our users with a seamless request experience through
their Slack integration.”
Least privilege posture management is available to Opal Security
customers in cloud and self-hosted deployments at no additional
cost. To learn more about least privilege posture management, you
can schedule a meeting with the Opal team at Blackhat, August 6-8
in Las Vegas, or visit the Opal Security website.
About Opal SecurityOpal Security is redefining
identity security for modern enterprises. The unified platform
aggregates identity and access data to provide customers with
visibility and rapid control to protect mission-critical systems
while accommodating the complexity and agility businesses require
for growth. IT and security teams can discover anomalous identity
risks and remediate them in minutes. Many global leaders, including
Databricks, Figma and Scale AI, trust Opal Security to enable them
to govern and adapt sensitive access quickly and securely. Based in
New York City and San Francisco, the company is backed by Greylock,
Battery Ventures, Box Group, SVCI and other prominent industry
leaders. Learn more at opal.dev and follow the company on X
(formerly Twitter) @opal_sec and on LinkedIn.
Media ContactJennifer TannerLook Left
Marketingopal@lookleftmarketing.com
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at
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