Fine-Grained Access Control
Learn the fundamentals of fine-grained access control and how it differs from traditional RBAC approaches.
Fine-grained access control (FGAC) represents a paradigm shift in how organizations manage permissions and authorization. Unlike traditional Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), FGAC allows you to define precise, context-aware policies that consider not just who is making a request, but also what they’re trying to do, on which resource, and under what circumstances.
What Makes Access Control “Fine-Grained”?
Traditional RBAC assigns permissions based on roles. A user might have an “Editor” role that grants them permission to edit all documents. But what if you need more nuanced control?
Fine-grained access control lets you express policies like:
- Editors can only edit documents in their department
- Managers can approve expenses up to $10,000, but need additional approval for larger amounts
- Users can only access patient records if they have an active treatment relationship
The Building Blocks of FGAC
A fine-grained authorization system typically works with three core concepts:
1. Principals
Who is making the request? This could be a user, a service account, or even another system. Principals often carry attributes like department, role, clearance level, or group memberships.
2. Actions
What are they trying to do? Actions are the verbs of your authorization model: read, write, delete, approve, share, etc.
3. Resources
What are they trying to act upon? Resources have their own attributes: owner, classification level, creation date, etc.
Why Big ACL?
Big ACL provides a platform to design, test, and enforce fine-grained policies at scale. With our visual policy editor, you can model complex authorization scenarios without writing code. Our AI-powered analysis helps identify policy conflicts and gaps before they become security incidents.
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