Enterprise options for least privilege security access control systems

Collections enable organizations to manage access to logins, credit cards, and other sensitive items within teams in Bitwarden Password Manager. They allow speedy collaboration and access control, making it more convenient for users to log in to work. The collections management settings provide both security and flexibility, allowing for adaptation to the business's needs.

Access control is a mechanism that regulates who can view, use, or access a particular resource in a computing environment. It involves identifying an individual or system, authenticating their identity, authorizing them to access the resource, and auditing their access patterns. The primary goal of access control is to minimize security risks by ensuring only authorized users, systems, or services have access to the resources they need. Effective access control systems can help achieve a policy based on the principle of least privilege. By implementing effective access control measures, organizations can protect their sensitive data and maintain trust.

A collection can be thought of like a shared folder of vault items, with three major advantages:

A vault item can belong to more than one collection without needing to duplicate the item. This means that an item shared between two teams, such as the Finance and HR teams, can be updated only once, and both teams have instant access to the changes. This eliminates the administration overhead of having to find instances of duplicated items to make updates in multiple locations.

Every vault item is assigned to one or more collections. Users can be added to one or more groups. Then groups and/or individual users are assigned to one or more collections. Managing access privileges and ensuring the principle of least privilege is crucial to prevent privilege creep, where users might accrue excessive access over time. This scalable framework provides access control management for organizations of any size, from small teams to large enterprises.

Additionally, permission levels for each group or individual user can be set to allow for as wide or narrow management control as the organization prefers. Combined with collection management settings, organizations have the flexibility to choose how they want collections to function, ranging from fully self-serve to requiring complete administrative oversight.

A collection can contain another nested collection, and the subfolder does not inherit the access permissions of the top folder. This ensures that access to specific collections is intentional and prevents accidental access through misplaced folders. This also allows for organization of collections by project, where some members may have the same function (e.g., IT) but do not need access to other team projects (e.g., Cloud Infrastructure).

How collections are managed is entirely up to you. Bitwarden offers leading flexibility to meet the needs of your business. This means you can choose to allow your users to completely self-serve collections and vault items, make admins completely hands-on, and set up a policy of least privilege.

Bitwarden Password Manager organization owners have three toggleable options for collections management. Each one affects the behavior of collections. Note that only organization owners have access to these settings.

When this option is checked, administrator roles will have the ability to view, edit, and manage all collections and vault items in them. When this option is unchecked, administrator roles will only have access to collections where they have direct collection permissions assigned.

These two options limit who can create or delete a collection. Upon verification, only administrators will be able to create or delete a collection. If unchecked, any user will be able to create a collection, and any user with the Can manage permission for a collection can delete it.

For more details on how these settings affect your organization and how they can be utilized, refer to the Resource: Collections Management Settings.

Beyond collections management settings, users and groups can be granted specific permissions to access additional management options. Securing access to sensitive areas and data through effective management and authorization processes is crucial in safeguarding systems against unauthorized entry.

The Can manage collection permission allows users to manage collection info and access. Users or groups with this permission can add/remove items in the collection, assign new users, and manage their access permissions to that collection. Depending on the collection management setting, they may also be able to delete the collection. This allows admins to designate a team or project lead for a specific collection and then let them manage the day-to-day work requirements.

For enterprise customers, a custom role (pictured above) can be assigned to individual users to delegate administrative overhead. For example, help desk team members might have this custom permission to help manage the organization's collections without having access to more sensitive organization settings, such as SSO.

Collections and sharing vault items are two of the compelling ways that Bitwarden Password Manager helps businesses be more productive in their day-to-day operations. Using Bitwarden as an access control system to manage entry to restricted credentials and sensitive data ensures that only authorized individuals gain access. It goes without saying that the security benefits of securing your privileged team members with strong credentials, or even your entire business, are significant.

Start a free 7-day business trial and experience the flexibility of Bitwarden collections and the other great benefits of a business password manager today!