Self-canceling proxy rights: This keeps the summer safe without anyone having to clean up
Vacation substitutions are necessary, but the rights left behind pose a risk. We’ll show you how to set a time limit on substitution rights from the start, so they automatically expire after the vacation. No manual cleanup, no lasting vulnerabilities. The corresponding checklist is available for immediate download.
Summer brings full inboxes and empty desks. To ensure nothing falls through the cracks, coworkers take over the tasks of those who are away and are granted additional access rights in return. This makes sense and is indispensable in everyday life. The problem is what happens afterward—which is usually nothing. The person covering for a colleague has long since returned to their own desk, yet the expanded permissions remain in place. Find out how to avoid this issue from the start in our new blog post.
Why Unresolved Substitution Rights Pose a Security Risk
Every instance of delegation temporarily expands the group of people authorized to access sensitive data and systems. This is not a problem as long as that access is revoked once the absence ends. In practice, however, this rarely happens automatically.
If temporary permissions are granted manually, they are either revoked manually—or not. After a vacation, no one thinks about it anymore, and so more and more permissions accumulate over the years. Many small instances of delegation lead to a creeping proliferation of permissions. In the end, a person has access to a dozen areas that no longer have anything to do with their actual role.
This poses a twofold problem for information security. Every unnecessary permission increases the attack surface, because a compromised account can cause as much damage as its permissions allow. At the same time, the accumulation of permissions contradicts the principle of least privilege, which grants each person only the access they truly need. Standards such as ISO 27001, NIS2, IT-Grundschutz, and the GDPR require precisely this minimal, traceable assignment of permissions. Undocumented legacy permissions from past delegations thus pose not only a security risk but also a compliance risk.
Setting Time Limits from the Start Instead of Cleaning Up Afterward
The solution isn’t to clean up more thoroughly after vacation, but to make cleaning up unnecessary in the first place. The key idea: Authorization to act on behalf of someone else isn’t granted as a permanent arrangement, but is given an expiration date from the very beginning.
When granting the right, you specify the period for which it is valid—usually for the duration of the absence. Once this period expires, the right is automatically revoked. There is no need for reminders, ticket tracking, or manual checks. The temporary access right simply expires because that is exactly what it was designed to do.
This approach turns the logic on its head. Instead of granting rights and hoping that someone will think about revoking them later, revocation is planned for from the very beginning. Security thus arises not from discipline applied after the fact, but from the configuration established in advance.
This Is How Proxy Rights Are Waived
With the BAYOOSOFT Access Manager, you can set time limits on access rights across Active Directory, file servers, SharePoint, and line-of-business applications. A temporary access assignment is set up for a defined period and automatically terminated once that period has expired. The process is transparent and audit-proof, with every step documented.
This involves the interplay of several mechanisms:
This ensures that the principle of granting only the minimum necessary permissions is maintained over the long term, even across multiple vacation periods. This significantly reduces the burden of regular recertification, because it prevents orphaned permissions from arising in the first place—permissions that would later have to be painstakingly reviewed and revoked.
Less effort, fewer vulnerabilities
The obvious benefit is the time saved. No one has to go through lists after the summer, verify permissions, and revoke them one by one. The less obvious—but more important—benefit is the consistently small attack surface. Permissions exist only as long as they are needed and are reliably revoked afterward.
For IT, this means less routine work and fewer inquiries. For the business units, it means that temporary replacements can be set up quickly and easily. And for everyone responsible for compliance, it means that the authorization structure is always clean, traceable, and audit-ready.
Your Checklist for Safe Vacation Cover
To ensure that the next vacation season goes smoothly without any lingering legal issues, we’ve summarized the most important steps in a concise checklist. It will help you plan substitutions properly, set time limits for them, and automatically end them.
The checklist includes, among other things:
- Plan for substitute coverage early and clarify roles
- Grant only the permissions that are actually needed
- Set a time limit on every delegation of authority from the outset
- Use automatic withdrawal instead of manual tracking
- Document the granting and revocation of authorizations in an audit-proof manner
- Conduct random inspections after the season
Download the complete checklist and make reliable vacation cover the norm.
Conclusion
Temporary replacements are not a security issue, but residual permissions are. If you wait until after the fact to revoke temporary permissions, you’ll lose track of them sooner or later. If you set them to expire from the start, you won’t have to clean up the mess in the first place.
The BAYOOSOFT Access Manager makes exactly that possible. Proxy rights are granted for a limited time and are automatically revoked after the vacation ends. This keeps the summer stress-free, the authorization structure organized, and the attack surface small.
