Justin Bieber – a reason for effective automated user deprovisioning

Automate celebrity user provisioning and de-provisioning.

As a musician and an information security professional, I personally wish that de-provisioning could apply to Justin Bieber. I am pretty sure that most professionals in the real world have the same feelings I do based on recent media attention and online comments, so hopefully everyone appreciates the ability of identity management software to disable access through automated user deprovisioning when HR terminates a worker. Think about it, if Justin Bieber worked for you, and you had the opportunity to terminate him, wouldn’t you want all of his access and associations to your organization removed as soon as technologically possible to lower your risk!!!

While this may be a bit harsh, I always find it a shame to see lower-quality musical talent make millions of dollars when my favorite virtuoso musicians and groups such as Yngwie Malmsteen or Dream Theater are virtually unknown in the grand scheme of things.  Hopefully, there are progressive neo-classical fans out there reading this.

While your organization may not actually have Justin Bieber working for you, it is safe to assume that you do have some low-quality performers (who believe they are extremely talented), unstable resources and flat-out untrustworthy individuals. Anyone could embarrass you or damage your brand in some form or fashion if they had the opportunity to do so before and after they are unexpectedly terminated. Therefore, ensuring efficient identity management both with automated user provisioning workflow, off-boarding and deprovisioning is critical in today’s world.

Bieber benefits to automated user deprovisioning

Let’s see how Justin could benefit from automated user deprovisioning workflow:

• Dumped by Selena Gomez… Orphan identity alert.
• Late for concerts… Voice enhancer access declined.
• Underage at the Toxic Luau… Facility access denied.
• Race Ferrari through school zone… Assets revoked.
• Possé crashes Tesla into paparazzi… Group terminated.
• Start car with Identity Biometric Breathalyzer… Sobriety check.

It’s proven time and time again manually managing activities like deprovisioning simply does not work. Technology, in the form of identity management and access governance software, is the only real solution to automate the removal of accounts, application access and assets once a worker has been terminated. An automated feed from HR can help drive the removal of access, but there also needs to be a self-service user provisioning workflow to initiate terminations in sensitive situations where HR might not be able to enter the termination record at a specific time (Emergency Terminations).

I personally would want to use the self-service emergency termination option to disable Justin’s accounts even if HR was available simply because actually clicking the Submit button to initiate the process would be satisfying professionally speaking.

So, for all the Justin Bieber workers, business users, consultants, suppliers, partners and musicians you have in your organization, make it a point to ensure your identity and access management software and identity processes run smoothly so annoying identities are severed from your systems as quickly and efficiently as possible. Then, maybe the last thing you’ll hear from them is “Baby, Baby, Baby, OOH I can’t login.”

Follow Ryan Ward, Avatier Chief Innovation Officer and Chief Information Security Officer, on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ryawarr

Watch Ryan describe how to return identity and access management to the business user with Avatier’s Identity Access Management software.

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