Access Governance Dashboard

Project Overview

The Access Governance Dashboard is a comprehensive solution designed to provide visibility into user access patterns across multiple enterprise systems. By aggregating and visualizing access data, the dashboard helps security teams identify potential risks, compliance issues, and access anomalies that might otherwise go undetected.

The Challenge

Organizations often struggle with visibility into user access patterns across multiple systems, making it difficult to:

• Identify potential security risks and compliance issues
• Detect segregation of duties conflicts
• Track access certification completion rates
• Analyze trends in access patterns over time
• Provide meaningful metrics to leadership

The Solution

I designed and implemented a comprehensive dashboard that:

• Aggregates access data from multiple enterprise systems
• Visualizes access patterns and anomalies
• Identifies potential segregation of duties conflicts
• Tracks access certification completion rates
• Provides trend analysis for security metrics

Technologies Used

Implementation Process

1. Data Collection and Integration

The first step involved collecting access data from various enterprise systems, including Active Directory, ERP systems, and custom applications. I developed Python scripts using Pandas to extract, transform, and load this data into a centralized database.

2. Data Analysis and Modeling

Once the data was collected, I performed extensive analysis to identify patterns, anomalies, and potential risks. This involved:

• Identifying users with excessive permissions
• Detecting segregation of duties conflicts
• Analyzing access patterns over time
• Correlating access data with security incidents

3. Dashboard Development

Using Tableau, I created an interactive dashboard with multiple views and filters to allow security teams to explore the data from different angles. The dashboard includes:

• User access heat maps showing permission density
• Trend analysis of access changes over time
• Compliance metrics and certification tracking
• Risk scoring based on access patterns
• Anomaly detection highlighting unusual access patterns

Results and Impact

The Access Governance Dashboard delivered significant benefits to the organization:

• Reduced the time required for access reviews by 65%
• Identified several critical access control issues that had previously gone undetected
• Improved compliance posture by providing clear evidence for auditors
• Enhanced security team efficiency through automated risk identification
• Provided leadership with clear metrics on access governance

Lessons Learned

This project reinforced the importance of data-driven security approaches. By transforming raw access data into actionable insights, organizations can significantly improve their security posture. Key lessons included:

• The value of visualizing complex security data to identify patterns
• The importance of automating routine security tasks
• The need for cross-functional collaboration in security initiatives
• The power of data analytics in identifying security risks