Privileged Access Security
Privileged access security, also referred to as Privileged Access Management (PAM), is a feature of cybersecurity that hinges on monitoring, securing, and maintaining control over provisioned accounts and their access permissions, at an enterprise company level. It is an integral part of protecting critical, sensitive, or customer data from internal and external cyberattack and phishing threats.
The global average cost of a data breach has reached $4.88 million. To prevent suffering a breach, organizations need to control who can access their systems and data, and the best way to do that is with a privileged access management (PAM) solution. PAM consists of strategies and tools for controlling access and protecting privileged or elevated users, identities, assets, and data in their IT systems. Basically, PAM helps organizations enforce least-privilege access: users are only granted the minimum amount of access needed to do their jobs.
Continue reading to learn about privileged access security, PAM best practices, and why PAM as part of your identity and access management strategy matters for your organization.
Who needs to use a Privileged Access Management (PAM) tool?
PAM is applicable to organizations across all industries and sizes, from small to enterprise. However, it is typically required or strongly encouraged for organizations in heavily regulated industries, such as healthcare, government, legal, and gaming. Organizations that have or want to get cyber insurance also need a strong PAM tool to ensure they qualify for coverage.
What kind of data are organizations looking to secure?
Identity and access management solutions are key for any organization that stores or interacts with sensitive data. Types of data that organizations seek to secure with a PAM tool include:
- Financial records
- Customer and employee data
- Profit and loss statements
- Health information
- Intellectual property
- Contracts
- Records and research
- Vendor and supplier contact information
- Company trade secrets
Data leaks that compromise the privacy and security of sensitive information like this would lead to major compliance issues and financial loss.
What does Privileged Access Management (PAM) protect you from?
A Verizon 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report found that 68% of data breaches involve human failings — via privilege misuse, error, social engineering, or the use of stolen credentials. PAM tools remove a great deal of all-too human risk by automating manual processes and ensuring users don’t actually know the privileged credentials being used. This also means valuable credentials can’t be written on a “Post-It" and displayed on a shared workstation – an extremely common, and extremely dangerous error.
A hacker who steals privileged credentials has basically stolen the keys to the kingdom. Robust privileged account management is needed to mitigate the cybersecurity threat presented by privileged accounts. When these high access accounts are compromised by a bad actor, a loss of protected information or a cyberattack such as ransomware follows.
PAM also protects you from being noncompliant with cybersecurity regulations and assists in getting and maintaining cyber insurance coverage. A PAM tool also prevents organizations from having a larger-than-necessary attack surface.
The Benefits of Privileged Access Security
Understanding the benefits of PAM will make the solution easier to implement across an enterprise, and will also make it easier to tell users how PAM tools will minimize the organization’s attack surface for a more mature, “better” cybersecurity posture.
Some of the benefits include:
- Increased security | When user access is controlled and monitored through a PAM solution, organizations reduce the risk of that access becoming compromised. For example, users don’t necessarily know the privileged credentials being used for access. This limits the chances of a cyberattack (or unintentional user error) through compromised credentials and helps organizations meet regulatory and cyber insurance requirements.
- Ease of management | When privileged accounts are managed through a centralized location, administrator workflows are simplified and streamlined. In addition, changes can be made faster, take effect immediately, and reduce the risk of human error.
- Improved insight into network activity | PAM tools can identify all privileged accounts in a network, and can monitor, record, and audit user behavior. This level of visibility helps organizations promptly identify and respond to potential security issues within the system.
- Accommodates cloud solutions for hybrid setups | Moving to hybrid and remote work arrangements necessitates more secure remote access to systems and applications. PAM solutions can offer secure remote access to privileged systems to keep your network and team members safe while also improving efficiency.
Who is responsible for managing a PAM product and who uses PAM?
PAM is typically owned by IT, Security and/or the IAM team. The types of privileged users who use PAM include:
- Administrators: These accounts have the highest level of privilege over an IT system. Admin accounts are often used to grant access or permissions, as well as to perform tasks to assist other users. They include:
- Windows admins
- Local admins
- Domain admins
- Unix/Linux superusers
- Business users (users not in IT who have privileged or admin rights to applications)
- Machine identities:
- Application | This is an account accessed by an application to grant automated access to data or other applications in the system.
- Service | These accounts can operate tasks or make updates to the system. A database or cloud platform are types of non-humans that need service accounts.
- Third parties and vendors: Many data breaches begin with external, third-party vendors. Third-party access control is a crucial part of any comprehensive cybersecurity strategy.
What are privileges and what types of privileged accounts are there?
Privileges are the elevated ability to access and do certain authorized activities within a system or network. They are typically assigned to a privileged user, such as an IT administrator.
Privileged accounts give whoever has access higher or more elevated ability to do things that “normal” or standard users can’t do. They include:
- Local administrator accounts with administrative access for the local or single instance only
- Domain administrator accounts with administrative access across all hosts or instances within the domain
- Active directory accounts used for centralized authentication and authorization to network resources, including user accounts, computer accounts, and dedicated service accounts for applications. Active Directory simplifies user management, controls access to data, and enforces security policies in business environments.
- Emergency accounts that grant users one-time or limited access in the event of an emergency
- Service accounts are a type of machine account that can operate tasks or make updates to the system. A database or cloud platform are types of non-humans that need service accounts.
- Application accounts are a type of machine account accessed by an application to grant automated access to data or other applications in the system.
What is required to successfully implement and maintain a Privileged Access Security strategy?
Implementing and maintaining a successful Privileged Access Security strategy involves several key components:
- Documentation: First, you need a clear and well-defined privileged access policy. This policy should outline how privileged access is defined, managed, and who owns it. It should also include security best practices to ensure that access is granted only to those who need it and that it is regularly reviewed and updated. For example, the policy might specify that only IT administrators have access to critical systems, and that access is reviewed every six months.
- Organizational buy-in: Getting everyone on board is crucial. This includes IT, Security, Identity and Access Management (IAM), internal audit, compliance, and any other users who have privileged access, such as marketing teams that manage social media accounts. Each group should understand their role and responsibilities in the PAM strategy. For instance, IT might be responsible for implementing technical controls, while compliance ensures that the policy meets regulatory requirements.
- Complementary cybersecurity solutions: To strengthen your PAM strategy, consider integrating complementary cybersecurity solutions. One critical solution is secure remote access, especially for vendors and external users. A vendor privileged access management solution can help manage and monitor access to sensitive systems from outside the organization.
Additionally, consider solutions like Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) to manage rights and permissions for cloud infrastructure. This ensures that only authorized users can access cloud resources. Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) is another important tool. It helps quickly detect and respond to identity-based attacks, providing an additional layer of security.
What are the most important functions of a PAM product?
An effective PAM tool will address several key areas of network defense.
- Credential management in a vault: securely store and check-in/check-out credentials. Credentials can be injected into sessions so that users never need to know usernames and passwords
- Credential rotation: ability to rotate credentials automatically, whether based on event-triggers or time-based
- Session management and monitoring: ability to record sessions, audit all activity, jump into (view), and terminate sessions in real-time
- Multifactor authentication: an additional security layer to verify a user’s identity before access is granted
- Account discovery: ability to discover/find privileged accounts within the organization’s network and bring them into the PAM solution for management. Things like reused passwords/keys and orphaned accounts
- HTML5 connectivity: connectivity for a session through a browser for easy and seamless access
What are the risks of operating a business without PAM?
Unsecured or broad privileges: One of the biggest access security risks is when users have more privileges than they need to perform their jobs. Over time, as employees stay with a company, they often accumulate additional privileges. If these accounts are compromised, attackers can use the excess privileges to move laterally within the network, elevate their own privileges, and carry out successful attacks. The principle of least-privileged access is crucial, and PAM helps ensure that users have only the access they need, significantly reducing the attack surface.
Shared use: Shared credentials are another common issue. To make access easier, these credentials often have weak passwords and are managed insecurely, such as being written down and shared. This lack of individual accountability means it's difficult to trace who performed specific actions, leading to limited visibility and increased security risks. PAM helps manage and secure these credentials, ensuring that each user has their own unique access and actions are traceable.
Abandoned or unknown accounts: Organizations can easily lose track of privileged accounts, which can number in the hundreds, thousands, or even millions. These abandoned or unknown accounts remain active and can serve as backdoors for attackers. If compromised, they can create significant security vulnerabilities. PAM solutions can discover and manage these accounts, bringing them under control, and reducing the risk of unauthorized access.
Reused Passwords: Using the same password across multiple accounts is a common practice that significantly increases the risk of compromise. If one account is breached, the attacker can use the same password to gain access to other accounts. PAM helps mitigate this risk by enforcing strong password policies and ensuring that passwords are unique and regularly updated, thereby enhancing overall security.
PAM: A crucial component of any cybersecurity strategy
PAM solutions are a crucial part of network security and should be implemented for all users — internal and external — that are granted advanced permissions. Organizations need privileged access security solutions to ensure comprehensive protection of critical data and systems.