RBAC stands for Role-Based Access Control, which is an approach to restricting system access to authorized users based on their roles or job functions. RBAC provides fine-grained control, offering a simple, manageable way to access management that is less error-prone than individually assigning permissions. RBAC can be used to implement different types of access control policies, such as mandatory access control (MAC) or discretionary access control (DAC).
RBAC is used for various purposes, such as:
- Reducing cybersecurity risk by ensuring that users can only access information and perform actions they need to do their jobs, following the principle of least privilege.
- Protecting sensitive data from unauthorized access or modification by limiting who can view or edit it based on their roles.
- Simplifying administration of security in large organizations with hundreds or thousands of users and permissions by using role-permissions, user-role and role-role relationships.
- Providing temporary or conditional access to certain resources or tasks based on the needs of a group or a project.