A front desk clerk who left a hotel in October can often still sign in to the booking system in March. Nobody planned it that way. The account just never got turned off, because turning it off wasn't anybody's job. Identity and access management makes it someone's job: deciding who can log in to what at your Monterey business, and changing it as soon as a person's role changes.
When You Need Identity and Access Management
Think about everyone who has left your company in the past two years. Then ask who shut off their email, their accounting login, and the shared drive. If the honest answer is "probably somebody," you need this.
Seasonal hiring makes it worse on the Peninsula. Hotels and restaurants add staff every spring and lose half of them by November. Each new hire needs logins fast, so someone copies an existing account, permissions and all. By August a summer server can open payroll, because the account they were cloned from could.
Other warning signs are easy to spot. Everyone is an administrator on their own PC. Five people share one login. Former employees still show up in your Microsoft 365 user list.
How Our Identity and Access Management Works
First we list every account in every system you use and match each one to a real, current person. The leftovers get disabled.
Then we build roles, so the bookkeeper gets the accounting system and the finance folders while the front desk gets reservations and email and nothing more. New hires get a role instead of a copy of a coworker, with the least access their job needs. Security people call that least privilege.
We also write down your joiner, mover and leaver steps with you. When someone joins or leaves, one email to us gets every system on the list updated. Same for a promotion. Where we can, logins tie back to one central directory, so turning off the person turns off everything. Our approach follows NIST's guidance on digital identity and sign-in.
Door badges and keypads are a separate system. We handle those under badge readers and door entry for your building.
Identity and Access Management Cost in Monterey
Cost depends on how many people you have and how many separate systems they log in to. Ten staff on one email platform is a small project. Forty staff with summer swings and six apps that each keep their own passwords means more cleanup up front. We look at your setup on a call and send a written quote before any work begins. If you're a managed IT client, ask what your flat monthly fee already covers.
Why Offices Here Let Us Hold the Keys
Access work is mostly follow-through, and it falls apart when nobody nearby owns it. We've supported more than 250 Monterey County businesses since 2008.
Cutting off someone who just quit on bad terms can't wait until next week. High-priority tickets carry a one-hour response target, and Critical ones get a technician within 15 minutes.
Logins are where most break-ins start, which is why this work ties so closely to the cybersecurity services built around your staff logins. Call (831) 649-5050 and we'll begin with a full list of your accounts.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is this different from multi-factor authentication?
MFA checks that the person signing in is who they claim to be. Identity and access management decides what that person can open once they're in, and whether their account should exist at all. You want both.
What happens when an employee quits without notice?
Call or email us and we disable their accounts, then change any shared passwords they knew. If company files are on their personal phone and that phone is enrolled in management, we remove those too.
Can our front desk keep sharing one login?
You can, though we'd talk you out of it. With a shared login you can't tell who did what, and the password has to change every time anyone leaves. Separate logins are quick to set up and easy to shut off.