Deprovisioning

In any business environment, managing who has access to what – and when that access should end – is just as important as granting it in the first place. Whether you're part of a growing startup or an established enterprise, understanding when to revoke access is essential to protecting confidential data and maintaining operational efficiency. 

In this article, you'll learn what deprovisioning is, why it’s a vital part of securing company data and systems, and how tools like 1Password Enterprise Password Manager can help you implement secure, streamlined access management at work.

What is deprovisioning?

Deprovisioning is the process of removing access to resources when a user no longer needs or is no longer authorized to use them. This may involve revoking access or disabling/deleting the user’s account altogether. For example, when an employee is promoted, changes departments, or leaves the organization.

Deprovisioning is critical for the security of your infrastructure, data, and software, and ensures only authorized users have access to the information and resources they need to perform their roles.

The opposite of deprovisioning is provisioning which is the process of granting access to resources or increasing permissions. In practice, IT and/or security professionals regularly perform a combination of provisioning and deprovisioning as teams and tooling change.

Why is deprovisioning important for security?

Deprovisioning helps prevent unauthorized access to your systems and data, which reduces the risk of breaches and insider threats. From a compliance perspective, it ensures access rights are aligned with organizational policies and any regulatory controls or requirements you may be subject to.

Automated provisioning can make IT processes more efficient, streamlined, and cost effective, and reduce potential errors that may occur with manual processing. 

How 1Password can help with deprovisioning

Just as you provision 1Password, you have to intentionally deprovision folks as part of the employee lifecycle. If someone has changed positions within the company, they may not need to be a member of a certain group any longer. If an employee has departed the organization, you’ll want to suspend or delete them entirely so they don’t have access to shared vaults, passwords, and other secure information.

Remember that a password shared cannot be unshared. As good practice, change any shared passwords after an employee has departed in the event they’ve been memorized or copied, just to be on the safe side.

You can also use Trelica by 1Password for efficient, automated, and auditable provisioning and deprovisioning of all your SaaS applications and licenses.