Segregation of Duties (SoD)
Segregation of Duties (SoD) is a security and compliance principle that reduces the risk of fraud, error, or abuse by ensuring that no single individual has control over all steps of a critical process. By dividing responsibilities among multiple roles, SoD enforces accountability, prevents misuse of privileges, and supports regulatory compliance. It is a core element of governance frameworks across IT, finance, and identity management.
What is Segregation of Duties?
Segregation of Duties (SoD) is the practice of splitting key tasks and responsibilities so that no single person can initiate, authorize, and complete a sensitive process alone. In IT, this means separating administrative roles to prevent conflicts of interest or privilege abuse. In finance and compliance, it means dividing functions like transaction approval, auditing, and record-keeping.
Why is Segregation of Duties important?
Without SoD, organizations face risks such as fraud, insider threats, and compliance violations. SoD is important because it: - Prevents misuse of privileges by requiring multiple individuals for high-risk tasks. - Ensures accountability and transparency in sensitive processes. - Supports compliance with regulations like SOX, HIPAA, and GDPR. - Strengthens identity and access governance by reducing toxic role combinations.
What are examples of SoD conflicts?
- IT administration: A single user with rights to both provision accounts and approve access requests.
- Financial systems: An employee who can both create vendors and approve payments.
- Identity governance: A role that allows a person to both request elevated access and approve it.
How is Segregation of Duties enforced?
Organizations enforce SoD using a mix of policy, process, and technology:
- Role-based access control (RBAC): Defines and enforces boundaries between roles.
- Access reviews: Periodic attestation campaigns to validate that privileges do not overlap.
- Automated workflows: Ensure that approvals require independent oversight.
- Monitoring and auditing: Detect and remediate SoD violations in real time.
Use Cases
- Healthcare: Ensures clinicians cannot both prescribe and approve medication dispensation, reducing the risk of medical fraud.
- Financial Services: Separates trading, risk management, and settlement functions to comply with SOX and reduce fraud.
- Government & Legal: Prevents individuals from having both investigative and approval roles in sensitive case systems.
- IT and Cloud Environments: Stops administrators from creating accounts and approving elevated access for themselves in identity systems.
How Netwrix can help
Netwrix helps organizations enforce Segregation of Duties (SoD) through Identity Management, Privileged Access Management (PAM), and Data Security Posture Management (DSPM). With Netwrix solutions, organizations can:
- Detect and remediate toxic role combinations across hybrid environments.
- Automate approval workflows to enforce SoD in account provisioning and access requests.
- Run attestation campaigns to validate compliance with SoD policies.
- Monitor and report on SoD violations in real time.
This approach reduces insider risk, strengthens compliance, and ensures least privilege access is consistently applied.
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