Top 9 Access Rights Management Systems In 2024

Having control over who can access what within an organization is crucial to prevent errors and misconduct. Yet, managing these access rights is not as simple as it may seem, it can be a bit challenging. If too many restrictions are imposed, it can hinder the efficiency of your users.

So, to simplify and streamline the management of access rights, you can deploy an access rights management system. In this article, we'll explore some of the most popular ARM systems you can consider implementing in your organization.

Before we explore the access rights management tools, let's first understand the basics. This way, you will have a clear understanding of this critical concept. These insights can further help you decide which tool to opt for your organization.

What Is Access Rights Management System?

The access rights management system is designed to manage and monitor user access rights to SaaS apps and data effectively. This further helps protect companies from data loss and security breaches.

Access management is all about controlling user access rights. It thoroughly tracks and modifies the authorization level of user access as required. Generally, employees access, modify or delete data on a daily basis. So, the issue occurs when these actions are not adequately supervised, potentially creating gaps for security breaches.

Therefore, the access rights management system functions so that it restricts what data users can access or modify, reducing the likelihood of unauthorized actions.

However, balancing user access can be a complicated task to manage because if you restrict access too much, it can impact user's productivity and slow down the business operation. This is why opting for an access management system is essential.

For instance, individual users are granted editing rights for File X but restricted to viewing File Y. Similarly, specific user groups with assigned roles may require read-only permissions for certain data types while having no access to others. So, it's essential for your IT team to understand the access requirements. To provide your team with visibility into access requirements, access management systems come into play.

It helps ensure that every time a user or file is added to the system, the appropriate access restrictions are implemented, either manually or automatically. This further helps in maintaining a secure access environment throughout the organization.  

Why Is Having An Access Rights Management System Important?

Access rights management systems play a crucial role in securing organization data. These automated tools ensure that users have the right access permission to the resources they need.

Moreover, as businesses expand, the number of employees and applications also increase. So managing employee roles, access, and monitoring user activities becomes significantly challenging. Not to mention, inadequate user access control also carries significant risks. Some of the risks are mentioned below:

• Accidental damage: Users with excessive privileges may unintentionally delete or share sensitive company data with third-party or unauthorized users.
• Malicious actors compromising an organization's critical data: An ill-ent employee could intentionally damage data, steal valuable information like customer lists, or expose financial data to harm the organization's reputation.
• Hackers breaching the security system: Hackers often target user profiles, aiming to gain privileged access to sensitive server data. And once they gain this access, they can steal valuable data, compromise data integrity, manipulate settings, or even disrupt services, depending on their objectives.
  
  So, to mitigate these risks, it is best to opt for an access rights management system. It will help your IT team to avoid granting users unnecessary access privileges. Also, with these systems, your team can enforce the principle of least privilege. This policy helps ensure that all users within the organization only hold the limited level of access necessary for them to perform their roles.
  
  However, the access rights management system is not restricted to that only, it offers additional functionalities.  

Basic Features Offered By Access Rights Management System

Listed below are some basic features that are offered by most of the access rights management systems:

• Automates user access management processes

Relying on manual methods for user management can slow down IT operations and introduce potential errors, posing risks to organizations' data.

Access rights management systems automate tasks such as creating, modifying, deleting, or disabling user accounts, saving your IT team's productive time and increasing efficiency. Also, with the help of automation, your IT team can take quicker and more accurate actions to manage access rights.

• Generates audit reports

Access rights management systems conduct audits and automatically generate reports. These reports provide your IT team with complete visibility into who has access to what and security issues. Accordingly, they can take necessary measures to minimize security breaches.

• Strengthens the organization's security system

Distinguishing between innocent mistakes and malicious activities in insider threats can be challenging. This is why rapid response is essential to safeguard data and resume operations.

So, these automated tools enable your IT team to promptly tackle cyber threats and insider attacks. It allows your team to thoroughly monitor every user's activities, which helps identify potential threats.

• Ensures compliance requirements are met

Auditors are responsible for assessing compliance with regulations like HIPAA or PCI. They expect the organization's IT teams to monitor and enforce user management policies effectively. So, to demonstrate the compliance requirements are met, the access rights management tools generate customized reports. These reports show who has access to specific resources.

Now that you know the concept, let's explore different access rights management tools.

Here’re The Top 9 Access Rights Management System In 2023

Listed below are the top 9 access rights management systems that helps your IT team to effectively and seamlessly manage user’s access rights.  

1. Zluri

Zluri offers an access management solution that enables your IT team to strike a balance between user ease and data security. It seamlessly connects users to applications, data, and devices/systems that are necessary for their work. It also ensures that only the right individual gains access to the right apps with an appropriate level of permissions at the right time.

Furthermore, it automates and simplifies user access right management processes such as provisioning, access modification, request management, and more. This not only helps in improving your IT efficiency but also significantly enhances the overall user experience by eliminating unnecessary wait times and bottlenecks.

Zluri's access management is not restricted to this only. It further offers other features as well that help your IT team seamlessly manage user access rights in an organization:

• Enables Your IT Team To Accurately Assign Role To Users

Previously, IT teams have relied on manual procedures to verify the identities of new users and then ultimately allocate them specific roles. Unfortunately, this approach was not only time-intensive but also susceptible to human errors. Also, it occasionally results in the misalignment of user roles.

To prevent such issues, Zluri takes a proactive approach during the onboarding of new employees. It automatically connects new joinee profiles with digital identity. This helps your IT team to seamlessly cross-verify their identities and then assign them appropriate roles.

Further, by doing so, your team can securely grant new employees access rights and permissions necessary to perform their jobs.

• Manages User Access to SaaS Applications Effectively

Zluri integrates with your organization's HR system, ensuring your IT team has access to the most updated employee data. With the help of this integration, Zluri automatically retrieves and presents all employee information on a centralized dashboard.

This further helps your IT team to grant and modify access efficiently, ensuring employees have the right level of access to all the required apps from day one. Also, they get timely access upon their role change. By doing so, your team can improve employee experience and increase their productivity. Additionally, Zluri enables your IT team to promptly revoke access when employees leave the organization. This further helps in preventing potential security breaches.

• Enforces Access Control Policies To Ensure Users' Access Rights Align With What Is Necessary

Zluri's access management helps your IT team grant users access to resources (apps, data, and other digital assets) essential for their jobs. To maintain this access control, it helps your team implement different access control policies such as role-based access control (RBAC), the principle of least privilege access (PoPL), segregation of duties (SoD), and just-in-time access.

• By implementing role-based access control, Zluri's access management enables your IT team to ensure the access rights align with the user's roles and responsibilities.
• Enforcing the segregation of duty policy enables your IT team to ensure no two individuals are responsible for completing one task.
• By enforcing the principle of least privilege, this access management system enables your IT team to ensure minimum access privileges/permissions should be granted to employees to avoid over-provisioning or granting excessive privileges.
• Implementing just-in-time access securely enables your IT team to grant employees temporary conditional access or just-in-time access to required apps for a specific duration. This way, your team can reduce the attack surface caused by standing privileges.
• Regularly Monitors And Evaluates User Access Rights

Zluri 's access management thoroughly documents who holds what access rights and keeps track of if anyone has more access than they require.

If it detects any issues or violations, your IT team can promptly change the user's access permissions, ensuring only the right individual has the authorized level of access. This way, your IT team can reduce security breaches that may take place due to employees possessing excessive permissions.

It's not restricted to that only; further, Zluri also provides your IT team with real-time notifications on users attempting to access apps that are not authorized to access as per their role.

This notification helps your team to take immediate action, like restricting or suspending user accounts if required, to maintain a secure access environment.

• Conducts Periodic Audits

Zluri conducts regular/periodic audits to ensure each user in the organization has the necessary level of access permissions to SaaS apps, data, and critical systems. If there is any misalignment/ mismanagement in their access rights, your IT team and reviewers can run deprovisioning playbooks or modify access playbooks. By doing so, your team can swiftly revoke access from users that are not necessary for their roles or modify the access.

Furthermore, Zluri also documents the entire review process and generates audit trails/logs and reports to show as proof/evidence to auditors. These reports demonstrate that your IT team has enforced access control policy and met compliance standards effectively without fail.

Now that you're familiar with the benefits offered by Zluri's access management, why not book a demo and experience it firsthand? See how this game-changing solution works for your organization.

Features

• Zluri's access management conducts periodic access reviews to monitor access environments. If any user activity violates the set access policies, it instantly initiates auto-remediation actions. These actions include, running a deprovisioning playbook to revoke access if users' access does not meet the access criteria. Or simply modify the access rights of the users with the reviewer's intervention.

• Zluri's access management offers your IT team a centralized dashboard to analyze which user has access to which specific SaaS apps. This centralized visibility helps your IT team effectively manage user access rights within the organization. It eliminates the need to go through multiple screens back and forth to gather user and app data. This saves your team's time and enhances their efficiency.

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.8/5
• Capterra: 4.9/5

2. SolarWinds Access Rights Manager

SolarWinds Access Rights Manager, a notable access rights management system, is a top-tier solution for managing Active Directory. This system automates critical access management tasks that are often unnoticed but play a critical role in maintaining the integrity of your network.

Furthermore, the Access Rights Manager diligently monitors activities affecting the domain controllers in your network. It promptly alerts your IT team if any modifications are made to the AD database records. These prompt alerts are very helpful to prevent security breaches.

Also, it enables your IT team to modify permissions within AD records. Its user-friendly interface allows your IT team to add, suspend, and delete user access permissions effectively.

Features

• SolarWinds Access Rights Manager offers a self-service module that is accessible via the web. This self-service feature enables users to create or modify their own accounts, reducing the burden on your IT Help Desk, especially in cases of forgotten passwords.
• The tool includes an analysis module that reports on user activities, aiding in identifying abnormal behavior. Such as, with the help of these reports your IT team can quickly identify compromised accounts being exploited by a hacker and accordingly, they can take preventive measures.

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.3/5
• Capterra: 4.6/5

3. Netwrix Auditor

Netwrix Auditor, a notable access rights management system, focuses on safeguarding your data, and one key way it does this is by managing who can access it. Netwrix uses smart algorithms to scan your data, both organized and unorganized and identifies the sensitive, regulated, and mission-critical data.

This helps your IT team take extra precautions to safeguard these critical data. It also sends real-time when any security breaches occur within the systems. A point to be noted is that Netwrix doesn't put emphasis on securing data that doesn't need protection.

Furthermore, Netwrix lets your IT team manage user access rights/permissions effectively and restrict unauthorized access to resources. Your team can also create reports to show auditors that the access control policies and compliance requirements are adhered.

Features

• Netwrix Auditor provides your IT team with a complete view of your data so that they can always see which user is accessing it and track every change the users make to that data. If it detects suspicious activity that could lead to a data breach, it notifies your team right away.
  
  This allows your team to act before the issue escalates and gets worse. Also, all these issues are presented in a single place, which further helps your team to understand the problem without any confusion.  
• With Netwrix, your IT team can seamlessly enhance your network's visibility and connectivity. They can gain complete visibility into other IT systems within your network by using add-ons available in the Netwrix store.
  
  Also, they can also create their own connections using their RESTFul API, provisioning them the flexibility to customize connections that meet their specific needs.

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.4/5
• Capterra: 4.5/5

3. ManageEngine AD360

ManageEngine AD360 is an access management solution that offers a user-friendly interface. It simplifies tasks like user provisioning and monitoring changes in Active Directory. Furthermore, this tool streamlines the creation, modification, and deletion of user accounts. It offers customizable user creation templates to create user accounts. Also, your team can import data from CSV file formats to create user accounts in bulk.

Not only that, AD360 enables your IT team to oversee and manage user access rights throughout their lifecycle. A standout feature is AD360's role as a central gateway to enterprise applications like G-Suite and Salesforce. All you need is a single sign-on, and you can access these applications without the hassle of entering another set of usernames and passwords.

AD360 provides a self-service password management feature, enabling users to reset their passwords independently, and reducing the need for help desk assistance. This not only saves time but also cuts costs, which can be redirected to boost productivity.

Features

• ManageEngine AD360 automates various access rights management tasks, significantly easing the workload for your IT teams. What's even better is that it allows your IT team to configure workflow rules as a foundation for automated tasks, ensuring that only activities adhering to these rules are executed.
• ManageEngine AD360 can seamlessly integrate with other components like Microsoft Exchange and Office 365 to audit user permissions and track activities such as login monitoring. The collected data can be leveraged to generate reports for team communication and to demonstrate compliance with IT regulations like SOX and HIPAA.

Customer Rating

• G2: 3.8/5

4. PRTG Active Directory Monitor

PRTG, a notable access rights management system, is a full-featured Network Monitor that operates using sensors. Each sensor is designed to keep an eye on different aspects of your network. It also focuses on the Active Directory sensor, which lets your IT team manage user access rights within a Windows environment.

This tool also enables your IT team to track user activity in Active Directory. They can see who's logged in or out, identify deactivated accounts, and monitor group activities. Additionally, it provides information on the number of users in each group and sends alerts when there are changes.

Also, it's essential to note that while PRTG excels at auditing your Active Directory, but it lacks the ability to make changes or edit rights and accounts. So, you can integrate it with other tools to add editing capabilities.

Apart from that, the free version of PRTG Monitor allows you to use up to 100 sensors. And you can explore the full features of the Performance Monitor with a 30-day trial.

Features

• One common challenge in access management is data replication in Active Directory. It can disrupt authentication and resource access due to synchronization failures. PRTG's AD monitor addresses this issue with a replication error sensor. It monitors eight different parameters and notifies your IT team if any access errors occur.

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.6/5
• Capterra: 4.6/5

4. STEALTHbits

STEALTHbits provides complete visibility into your Active Directory, a crucial repository for most credentials. It goes beyond merely analyzing structured and unstructured data repositories; it allows your team to manage and secure them effectively.

Also, it offers actionable data that can be used to reduce the risk of data breaches. Furthermore, your team can generate reports from this data to demonstrate compliance with various IT regulations, such as SOX, HIPAA, FISMA, and ITAR.

One standout feature of STEALTHbits is its ability to manage data access by adjusting user permissions and enforcing security policies. It promptly notifies you when it detects a potential threat and enhances your security posture.

Additionally, automation is a pivotal element of this tool, enabling your IT team to perform time-consuming operations that would otherwise require manual effort. This not only saves time but also boosts productivity and efficiency.

Features

• What sets STEALTHbits apart is its capacity to roll back and recover from changes that may inadvertently affect system files, saving valuable time that would otherwise be spent on troubleshooting.
• You can also benefit from the AD clean-up feature, which removes stale objects, toxic conditions, and inactive accounts, streamlining your Active Directory.

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.3/5
• Capterra: 4.5/5

5. N-able Passportal

N-able Passporta, a notable access rights management system, is a password vault system designed to streamline the management of access rights across various systems, including Active Directory and other LDAP-based systems. N-able is a suite of tools tailored for managed service providers (MSPs).

Also, it seamlessly integrates with your on-site or cloud-based access rights management system. Additionally, it's designed to ensure that your users never have direct access to view access credentials. This helps prevent identity theft (when an unauthorized user steals an authorized user's access details).

This service primarily targets MSPs and is designed to be multi-tenanted. MSPs can utilize Passportal to efficiently manage access rights for all the resources across their various clients' systems. Also, IT departments within organizations can benefit from using this tool for in-house access management.

Furthermore, when Passportal begins its service for a client, it first scans for existing access rights managers, extracting all permissions contained within them. Once this data is imported into Passportal, your IT team can manage access rights and passwords through the Passportal interface. That, too, without needing to sync them to the local controllers. Passwords are securely stored in an online password vault, protected with encryption.

Apart from that, Passportal offers features like enforcing password rotation and setting complex passwords. It can be configured to accept user-nominated passwords only if they meet predefined complexity criteria.

Features

• The password manager serves as a central control hub that unifies the management of diverse access rights systems within a single business. This centralized access control helps your IT team effectively manage user's access rights.
• Whenever any changes are made to passwords and access rights within Passportal, this tool automatically updates the same on its access rights controllers. These include Office 365, Active Directory, implementations, and Azure servers.

Customer Rating

• G2: 3.9/5
• Capterra: 4.4/5

6. JumpCloud

JumpCloud's, a notable access rights management system, One Identity platform enables your IT team to securely provide users with access to files, devices, servers, networks, and applications. It also assists your team in ensuring that users are granted precisely the access rights they need based on their specific roles.

Furthermore, JumpCloud simplifies centralized identity management through native API-based connections to various identity sources, including Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and HRIS systems like BambooHR and Personio. These integrations streamline the process of granting new user access rights and managing existing ones, establishing a central hub for identity management.

Additionally, JumpCloud enhances security by offering customizable features like conditional access policies, multi-factor authentication, and robust password management policies. These measures help your team protect user account data and mitigate the risk of security breaches.

Features

• It enables your IT team to revoke departing employees' access rights from multiple groups when they leave the organization with a single click. This further saves your team's time and effort.

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.5/5
• Capterra: 4.7/5

7. Microsoft Entra ID

Microsoft Entra ID (previously Azure Active Directory) helps your IT team to enhance user productivity by offering a hassle-free sign-in experience across your multi-cloud environment.

Also, it minimizes the time spent on managing passwords, allowing your workforce to focus on more valuable tasks and boosting overall productivity.

Furthermore, Microsoft Entra ID manages all your user access rights in a single location. This centralized approach enhances visibility and control, simplifying user access rights management and reducing the risk of unauthorized access.

Additionally, Microsoft Entra ID's automation feature helps to automatically detect and remediate identity-based risks. This proactive approach helps mitigate potential security threats before they escalate, strengthening your organization's overall security posture.

Features

• Microsoft Entra ID uses adaptive authentication and risk-based adaptive access policies to safeguard user identities. This security measure helps your IT team ensure that access is granted to authorized users while preventing potential threats
• It also provides your employees the freedom to manage their user access securely through user-friendly self-service access request portals. It includes features like My Apps, My Access, My Account, and My Groups. This reduces the administrative burden on IT teams and enhances user experience

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.5/5
• Capterra: 4.8/5

Also Read: How to Choose an Identity Access Management Tool