Business User

What is a Business User?

A business user is an employee within an organization who accesses business-related accounts, applications, or assets using credentials. While they may not hold administrative or privileged rights, their accounts still require oversight and protection.

Business users often handle sensitive information and can introduce risk of unauthorized access or data loss if their identities are not properly monitored and controlled.

Modern enterprise workforces include employees, contractors, and vendors with access to workstations, applications, and data within an organization to perform their jobs, often remotely. Here, we'll focus on the business users in your environment.

What role do business users play in identity security?

When accounting for every identity across your workforce, Business Users represent a significant portion of your environment. Unlike administrators, business users are not always monitored or controlled, yet they often have access to sensitive information. Think of the users who access customer data, sales records, payment information, PII, financials, and other business-critical resources. Oversight of these users is just as important as securing privileged users.

What are the key characteristics of business users?

• Typically operate without administrative or privileged rights.
• May require different levels of access throughout the environment. (For example, administrators for a CRM may have limited access to HR systems.)
• Require access to mission-critical business applications and data.
• Often less focused on security best practices, making them a common target for phishing and credential theft.
• Rely heavily on web-based and SaaS applications for daily work.
• Represent a large share of the organization's identity landscape.
• Can introduce risk through password reuse, shadow IT, or unmanaged accounts.

Why should you care about business users?

Privileged users get the most attention, but business users can be just as risky. These users frequently access sensitive applications and data. Without proper oversight, business users may leverage unsafe practices, such as saving passwords in browsers, using personal password managers, reusing passwords across services, or sharing credentials in private channels.

The lack of visibility and control leaves organizations vulnerable to credential theft, misuse, and compliance issues.

Business users are usually considered a "weak link” in organizations and, therefore, a primary target for bad actors. They are usually the identities that engage with a phishing email, enabling attackers to install malware or take control of their workstations. Once in, the bad actor will move laterally to servers, where they can cause severe damage (e.g., data exfiltration or ransomware deployment).

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