CIS Controls v8 6.8 — Define and Maintain Role-Based Access Control

What this control requires

Define and maintain role-based access control, through determining and documenting the access rights necessary for each role within the enterprise to successfully carry out its assigned duties. Perform access control reviews of enterprise assets to validate that all privileges are authorized, on a recurring schedule at a minimum annually, or more frequently.

In plain English

Define and maintain role-based access control, through determining and documenting the access rights necessary for each role within the enterprise to successfully carry out its assigned duties. In practice, this means you can prove you define and maintain access control-level controls on a defined cadence.

Why it matters

The CIS Controls are an industry-vetted, prioritised defence: skipping a safeguard widens the attack surface that the safeguards above and below it assume is closed. Audit frameworks (FedRAMP, PCI DSS, HIPAA) all cite CIS as evidence of due care.

What an auditor looks for

A CIS-aligned reviewer wants to see (a) which Implementation Group you are targeting, (b) a documented owner for the safeguard, and (c) a tooling or process artefact (config, scan output, ticket) that proves the safeguard runs on the cadence the control demands.

Within Protect, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Control 6.8) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

1. Write a short policy stating intent, scope and named owner.
2. Encode it as a platform guardrail — SCP, Azure Policy initiative, Organisation Policy, or repository policy.
3. Wire a monitoring signal that catches drift (CSPM rule, SIEM rule, scheduled query, Workspace alert) and ticket it.
4. Review on a documented cadence and capture the review in the risk register or compliance tracker.

Operational checklist

• Define And Maintain. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Perform. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Protect. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Validate. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Scope: access control, reviews, identity management, enterprise.

Evidence to collect

• Identity Scan. IAM / IdP exports — Entra ID, Okta, IAM Identity Center, Workspace directory — showing accounts, roles, MFA state and last sign-in.

Identity analytics (Okta, SailPoint, Access Analyzer) demonstrates least-privilege. Focus: Define and Maintain Role-Based Access Control.

How it maps to other frameworks

Computed from shared tags, control component and key-operation subjects — handy when you are reconciling controls across an audit.

• NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 AC-22 — Publicly Accessible Content
• NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 3.1.22 — Publicly Accessible Content
• ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.5.16 — Identity management
• BSI C5:2020 PS-04 — Physical site access control
• ISO/IEC 27701:2025 A.3.8 — Identity management

Related controls in CIS Controls v8

• Control 6.7 — Centralize Access Control
• Control 9.2 — Use DNS Filtering Services
• Control 6.1 — Establish an Access Granting Process
• Control 6.2 — Establish an Access Revoking Process
• Control 5.2 — Use Unique Passwords
• Control 5.6 — Centralize Account Management

References

• Center for Internet Security — CIS Controls v8
• Catalogue identifier: Control 6.8

Topics: governance riskidentity accessidentity managementaccess reviewprivileged access