Set up security
Overview
Robotic process automation becomes a global trend and it's difficult to find a company that doesn't use any type of automation in their daily work. Different corporations, companies, and even small firms automate parts of their business and save resources for other projects. At the same time, more questions arise together with automation. One such question is how to provide the required data security level. The majority of the data that robots work with is sensitive and this creates potential risks. If you would like to reduce those risks, you need to follow the recommendations and best practices that help to make your automated processes more secure.
Common practices
Several common recommendations for ensuring data security can be used regardless of the automation type you use.
Access management
It is important to define who will have access to sensitive data and how this access can be controlled. The common thing is not to provide complete access to data for any account except authorized ones, as this can cause problems. In RPA, a bot is often used to mimic s user's actions, so it should have the same access as a user. In most cases, such behavior is blocked by corporate group policies or internal rules. In this case, it is recommended to have separate accounts for bots and real users, and provide limited access to the bot accounts required for certain tasks. Additional benefit - you can tell apart bot activities and employee's ones in the audit trail that may help with troubleshooting and investigation.
Protected credentials
One of the basic security practices is using strong passwords. Even if you follow the access management approach, it is highly recommended to have a strong password for a bot and change it periodically. It may require additional changes in the bot code, but it helps to protect your data and reduce unauthorized access.
Audit
It is also useful to have an audit of actions that any account performs in a separate system or a network. This can be implemented in different ways: within a specific system or in a bot script, depending on the situation.
Security options
There are several options in that we recommend using when developing your bots. They are related to the common security practices that were listed above.
WorkFusion Studio
Some practical tips are mentioned in Codeless scripting best practice. Below you can find the recommendations specifically related to security.
Do not hardcode sensitive data in Recorder variables. All sensitive data should be stored in secret entries in Secrets Vault.
caution
Note that some character combinations are not allowed in Secrets Vault, so do not use them when creating new secret entries. You can find these combinations here.
Always clear the clipboard using the Clear Clipboard action and set blank values in variables using the Constant Value action at the end of your script, if you store sensitive data in variables. In this case, you will not be able to see values in execution result logs, and it will keep your data secret from other users that can use this PC.
If you need to use basic authentication to access any web source, store the whole URL as a secret entry. Another option is to dynamically create the required URL using credentials stored in Secrets Vault at runtime.
Control Tower
- Create users with different roles to differentiate access for users in Control Tower.
- Store sensitive information in Secrets Vault in Control Tower. It is also required if you use any secret entries in your recording or bot task code (see above).
tip
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