In a modern company, every employee uses several digital tools on a daily basis: computers, email, business applications, cloud services, collaboration platforms, VPNs and internal systems. Behind each of these tools are accounts, credentials and permissions that determine which resources a user can access and which information they can view or modify.
Properly managing business accounts does not simply mean creating a username and password for every employee. It means organizing access in a structured way, assigning each person only the permissions they need to perform their work.
Poor management can lead to unused accounts, excessive privileges, unauthorized access and difficulties in determining who can access specific information.
Why Account Management Is Important
Accounts are one of the main access points to a company’s digital resources.
A compromised account can allow an attacker to access emails, documents, applications, customer data or internal systems. Similarly, an employee with more privileges than necessary could accidentally modify or delete important information.
Proper account management therefore makes it possible to:
- Reduce the risk of unauthorized access
- Limit exposure of business data
- Control who can access different resources
- Simplify user management
- Improve cybersecurity
- Make it easier to identify potential anomalies
Access security should be considered an integral part of IT infrastructure management.
Create an Account for Every User
One of the fundamental principles is to avoid using shared accounts whenever possible.
Every employee should have a personal account associated with their identity. This makes it possible to determine who accessed a system, modified a document, performed an operation or used a particular application.
Shared accounts, on the other hand, make it more difficult to trace activities and can complicate permission management.
Even when an application requires technical or service accounts, these should be identified and managed separately from personal accounts.
The Principle of Least Privilege
One of the most important concepts in access management is the principle of least privilege.
Each user should have only the permissions actually required to perform their activities.
An employee who needs to view certain documents does not necessarily need to be able to delete them. A user who works with an order management system may not need access to administrative functions.
Limiting privileges reduces the potential impact of human error or account compromise.
Organizing Permissions by Role
Manually managing permissions for every individual user can become complex as a company grows.
A more effective approach is to organize access based on business roles.
For example, it is possible to create dedicated groups for:
- Administration
- Sales
- Marketing
- Production
- Human Resources
- IT
- Management
Specific permissions can then be assigned to each group. When a new employee joins the company, they can simply be added to the groups corresponding to their role.
This approach makes management more organized and reduces the risk of forgetting permissions that need to be removed or assigned.
Administrative and Standard Accounts
Another good practice is to distinguish between standard user accounts and accounts with administrative privileges.
The account used daily by an employee should not automatically have administrative privileges on their computer or on business systems.
Elevated privileges should only be used when necessary and, where possible, through separate administrative accounts.
This separation can reduce the risk of malware or malicious applications automatically gaining elevated privileges through the account normally used by the employee.
Multi-Factor Authentication
A password alone should not be considered sufficient protection for the most important accounts.
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds an additional layer of security by requiring a second form of verification in addition to the password.
Depending on the service, the second factor may be an authentication application, a security key or another supported method.
MFA is particularly important for administrative accounts, cloud services, VPNs, business email and systems containing sensitive information.
Managing Passwords Correctly
Companies should establish clear rules for managing credentials.
Passwords should be sufficiently strong and should not be reused across different services. It is also important to avoid storing them in unprotected documents, spreadsheets or easily accessible messages.
In business environments, using an appropriate password manager can be useful, especially when numerous credentials need to be managed or some of them need to be shared in a controlled manner among authorized employees.
What Happens When a New Employee Joins?
Account management should begin during the onboarding process of a new employee.
Before the employee starts working, it is possible to prepare:
- Business account
- Email address
- Computer or laptop
- Network access
- Required applications
- Shared folders and documents
- VPN, if required
- Permissions on business systems
- Multi-factor authentication
A standardized procedure reduces setup times and ensures that every new user receives exactly the access they need.
Offboarding Is Equally Important
One of the most critical aspects is managing accounts when an employee leaves the company.
Promptly disabling the account is essential to prevent the credentials from continuing to provide access to business systems.
It is also necessary to check:
- Email accounts
- VPN access
- Cloud services
- Business applications
- Groups and permissions
- Assigned devices
- Tokens and MFA methods
- Administrative accounts
- Access to third-party services
Credentials that are no longer required should be revoked, and company devices should be recovered and managed according to internal procedures.
Temporary Accounts and External Collaborators
Not everyone who accesses business systems is necessarily an employee.
Suppliers, consultants, technicians and external collaborators may need temporary access to specific resources.
In these cases, it is important to avoid using generic or shared accounts. It is preferable to create individual accounts with limited permissions and a defined duration, whenever technically possible.
Access should be revoked once the collaboration ends.
Regularly Review Permissions
Permissions should not be assigned once and then forgotten.
Over time, an employee may change roles, departments or responsibilities. As a result, they may accumulate permissions that they no longer need.
Regular access reviews make it possible to identify:
- Unused accounts
- Users with excessive privileges
- Groups that are no longer required
- Accounts belonging to former employees that are still active
- Temporary access that was never revoked
- Outdated permissions
This type of review can be integrated into the company’s IT maintenance and security processes.
Monitoring and Logging Access
To properly protect business systems, it is important to be able to reconstruct user activities.
Logging and monitoring systems can record information about access, modifications and other relevant events.
This data can help identify unusual behavior, unauthorized access attempts or activities that require further investigation.
Monitoring must, of course, be configured in compliance with applicable regulations and company policies.
Centralizing User Management
As the infrastructure grows, managing every account separately can become inefficient.
Companies can use centralized systems to manage users, groups and permissions, integrating them with computers, servers, applications and cloud services.
Centralization can simplify operations such as:
- Creating new users
- Changing roles
- Resetting credentials
- Revoking access
- Applying security policies
- Managing groups
- Controlling access
This makes it easier to maintain an overall view of users’ digital identities.
Accounts, Devices and Asset Management
Account management should also be connected to the management of company devices.
Knowing which user has a particular laptop, smartphone or workstation makes it easier to keep the IT inventory up to date.
Integrating Identity Management and Asset Management can therefore provide a more complete view of the infrastructure by connecting users, devices, software, licenses and permissions.
Structured Management Reduces Risk
Business account management is a daily activity that often goes unnoticed, but it has a direct impact on the security of the entire IT infrastructure.
Creating individual accounts, applying the principle of least privilege, using MFA, organizing permissions by role and promptly revoking access that is no longer required are all practices that help reduce risk.
As the company grows, it also becomes increasingly important to adopt standardized procedures and centralized tools for managing the user lifecycle.
A business account should therefore not be considered simply as a username and password, but as a digital identity with precise access rights, responsibilities and privileges.
Managing these identities in an organized way means better protecting data, simplifying IT administration and creating a more secure infrastructure that is ready to grow alongside the company.
