The Epoch Blog

The Winning Formula for Effective Data Access Controls

Traditional access controls have focused primarily on a Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) model for securing sensitive assets. Organizations needed to predefine all potential functions and assign each user a certain level of security privileges, granting or denying access to data based entirely on their role. This rigid, one-size-fits-all method quickly becomes unwieldy and error-prone with significant security risks when deployed at scale.

A new year is just around the corner, and defense undersecretary for research and engineering, Heidi Shyu, recently expanded the Pentagon’s list of technologies for prioritized development. The usual suspects are included, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity – but so are some unusual ones, like materials science and biotechnology.

The scenario: A massive cargo ship travels somewhere between the Panama Canal and Gibraltar. It’s late August and a new tropical storm just formed off the coast of Africa, headed straight up the middle of this heavily used shipping channel. 

Today's organizations struggle with a paradox: we live in the most technologically advanced period of history. Yet, while we all use technology to make our personal and professional lives better, our trust in those technologies has never been lower.