What Is Privileged Access Management (PAM)?

What is Privileged Access?

Privileged access means computer access with higher access rights than those of a standard user in an enterprise. Typically, privileged access is used to maintain, upgrade, and configure critical IT infrastructures, servers, applications, and databases.

Examples include:

• Root access: Root access provides unrestricted control over an entire system, allowing the user to modify or delete any file or configuration.

• Administrator access: Administrator access grants broad permissions to manage system configurations, user accounts, workstations, and software installations, usually within specific operating systems or networks.

• Access to service accounts: Service account access is designed to run automated processes, granting applications or services the necessary permissions to function without human intervention.

Sometimes any access to the command line on a server is considered privileged access, as most enterprise users are only allowed to use applications through their user interface.

Some privileged accounts are operating system accounts with command-line access; other privileged accounts are application accounts with higher privileges (e.g., accounts that can change the configuration of an application).

With privileged accounts, privileged users can access highly valuable targets like the company network infrastructure, medical records credit card databases, software production environments, or government secrets. These accounts are a primary target for malware and other external threats due to their sensitive and valuable contents. Typically a privileged user has access to one or more privileged accounts.

Privileged access may also be obtained through other means. For example, employees with physical access to a computer can usually reboot the computer from a DVD or USB memory stick and perform any desired operations on the computer. Thus, users with physical access may also sometimes be considered privileged users.

As operations in all industries are becoming digitalized and secure remote access is more commonplace, new targets that are considered privileged have emerged.

These include industrial control systems (ICS) in operational technology, network switches in IT environments, and access to company customer relationship management (CRM) databases. The accounts allowing access to such targets are considered privileged as well.

What Is Privileged Access Management?

Privileged access management (PAM) is used to mitigate the threats of credential theft and privilege misuse.

PAM as a concept is an important part of cybersecurity strategy. Its purpose is to control, track, secure, and audit all human and non-human (interactive and automated) privileged identities and activities in an enterprise IT environment.

PAM is a subfield of Identity and Access Management (IAM).

Sometimes referred to as privileged identity management (PIM) or privileged access security (PAS), PAM is grounded in the principle of least privilege, wherein users only receive the minimum levels of access required to perform their job functions.

The principle of least privilege is widely considered to be a cybersecurity best practice and is a fundamental step in protecting privileged access to high-value data and assets. By enforcing the principle of least privilege, organizations can reduce the attack surface and mitigate the risks associated with malicious insiders or external cyber attacks that can lead to costly data breaches.

Privileged access management typically includes a definition of roles for users and granting required privileges, or access rights, for those roles. It also includes distributing user information and access grants to all the devices and systems that enforce access rights in the organization. Furthermore, it usually includes monitoring what privileged users actually do and analyzing their activities to detect anomalies.

What are Privileged Accounts?

Privileged accounts refer to user profiles within a computer system that have more permissions compared to standard accounts. These accounts hold the keys to managing, changing, and potentially disrupting systems. For instance, think of employees such as system administrators or network engineers who need extra access rights to perform their roles effectively.

The main difference between privileged and regular user accounts lies in the level of access they provide. While all employees have standard accounts for daily tasks like sending emails or accessing shared drives, only certain individuals possess privileges that allow them deeper into the IT infrastructure.

Examples of these high-level users include database administrators who manage and maintain an organization's databases or network engineers responsible for ensuring smooth data communication across different networks. They can modify critical settings which could impact overall operations if mishandled.

In organizations, these special use cases often arise from necessity rather than choice. To keep systems running smoothly while also implementing changes when needed requires someone with elevated permissions – hence the creation of privileged accounts.

Types of Privileged Accounts

Privileged accounts come in various forms, each serving a specific purpose within an organization. Here are some common types:

• Local Administrative Accounts: These accounts are used for managing individual systems. They have full access to the local machine and can perform tasks like installing software, changing system settings, and managing user permissions. Local administrative accounts are typically found on desktops, laptops, and servers.

• Domain Administrative Accounts: These accounts have broad privileges across multiple systems within a network domain. They manage users, groups, policies, and security settings at the domain level. Domain administrators handle tasks that affect the entire network rather than just one machine.

• Emergency Accounts: Emergency accounts provide temporary elevated access during critical situations or when regular admin credentials fail. These are often tightly controlled and monitored due to their high-level access capabilities.

• Service Accounts: Service accounts run applications or services without human intervention. They usually operate with minimal privileges necessary for their function but still require careful management because they interact directly with system resources.

• Application Accounts: Used by applications to communicate with operating systems or databases, these accounts often need special permissions beyond those of standard user profiles. Properly provisioning application accounts ensures secure interactions between different software components.

Understanding these types helps organizations better manage privileged access while maintaining security protocols.

So whether it's installing software using Local Admin Account privileges or provisioning resources via Domain Admin Account powers – privileged accounts play diverse roles in keeping IT operations smooth within organizations.

What are Privileged Credentials?

Privileged credentials are the keys to accessing sensitive systems and data. These include passwords, SSH keys, and API tokens that grant elevated privileges within an organization’s IT environment.

Passwords are the most common type of privileged credential. They protect access to critical systems like servers or databases. SSH keys provide secure remote access to these systems, while API tokens allow applications to interact with other software securely.

Securing privileged credentials is crucial for maintaining a strong security posture. If compromised, they can lead to unauthorized access and significant damage. Common risks associated with compromised credentials include data breaches, financial loss, and reputational harm.

Implementing multifactor authentication adds an extra layer of protection by requiring multiple forms of verification before granting access. This helps ensure that only authorized users can use these powerful tools tied closely to your organization's digital identity.

Why is PAM Important?

Privileged Access Management (PAM) plays a crucial role in today's cybersecurity. Increasing threats target privileged accounts, making them prime targets for threat actors. These accounts often have access to sensitive data and critical systems.

Breaches of privileged accounts can lead to severe consequences. Data loss, financial loss, and reputational damage are common outcomes. For instance, if malware compromises a system administrator's account, it could disrupt entire networks or steal valuable information.

PAM helps mitigate these risks by controlling who has access to what within an organization. It ensures that only authorized individuals can use privileged accounts and monitors their activities closely. This reduces the chances of unauthorized access and potential breaches.

Compliance requirements also drive the need for PAM solutions. Many regulatory standards mandate strict controls over privileged access to protect sensitive data. Implementing PAM helps organizations meet these standards more effectively.

Beyond security benefits, PAM improves operational efficiency too. By automating privilege management tasks like provisioning and de-provisioning users' privileges quickly become easier while reducing human error risks associated with manual processes.

Moreover, cloud security benefits from integrating PAM into its framework since cloud environments require robust control mechanisms due to their dynamic nature where resources constantly change hands among different teams or departments within an organization

In summary, PAM provides essential protection against growing cyber threats targeting high-value assets through comprehensive privilege management practices which enhance overall organizational resilience against attacks.

PAM Links to Insider Risk and Vendor Risk

Users with privileged access are typically insiders in the organization.

They include system administrators, database administrators, developers, architects, application owners, and IT managers. Most privileged users are insiders who already have access to the organization and its systems. Statistically, most cybercrimes are perpetrated by or assisted by insiders. Thus, controlling and monitoring privileged access reduces insider risks.

Many external vendors and outsourcing partners also have access to critical systems and data. For example, Edward Snowden was a contractor to the US government. In the famous Target breach, the hackers used an HVAC contractor as a stepping stone to get to their actual target.

There are also recent examples of high-impact breaches involving privileged passwords, highlighting the need to adhere to best practices in privileged account management. It is common for IT administration to be contracted to offshore outsourcing partners. Implementing a comprehensive PAM solution that controls and monitors privileged access is an important step in reducing vendor risk.

PAM vs. PIM

Privileged Identity Management (PIM) focuses on managing and controlling access to privileged accounts within an organization. It ensures that only authorized users can access sensitive systems and data.

While both Privileged Access Management (PAM) and PIM deal with privileged accounts, they have different focuses:

• Scope: PAM covers a broader range of activities related to securing, managing, and monitoring privileged access across the entire IT environment. In contrast, PIM specifically manages the identities associated with these accounts.

• Functionality: PAM includes tools for session recording, auditing, password management, and privilege management. On the other hand, PIM primarily deals with provisioning roles and permissions to ensure that only authorized individuals have elevated privileges.

When used together, PAM provides comprehensive security controls while PIM ensures proper identity governance. For example:

• Delegation Management: With delegation management in place through both solutions working together seamlessly.

• Enhanced Security Posture: Combining these solutions helps organizations enforce strict control over who has access to what resources at any given time.

By integrating both approaches into their security strategy effectively addressing various aspects of protecting critical assets from unauthorized use or breaches becomes achievable for businesses today

PAM vs IAM

Identity Access Management (IAM) is a framework for managing digital identities and access permissions within an organization. It focuses on ensuring that the right individuals have appropriate access to resources when they need it.

Key Differences Between PAM and IAM

PAM, or Privileged Access Management, specifically targets privileged users who have elevated rights compared to regular users. These accounts often include system administrators or database managers with broad access across systems. In contrast, IAM manages all user identities and their general access permissions.

Role of IAM in Managing User Identities

IAM plays a crucial role in handling user credentials, defining roles, and setting up authentication mechanisms like passwords or biometrics. This helps organizations control who can log into their systems and what actions they can perform once inside.

How PAM Enhances IAM

While IAM covers the broader spectrum of identity management, PAM adds an extra layer of security by focusing on privilege management. It ensures that privileged accounts are monitored closely to prevent unauthorized activities. For example, while an employee might use an IAM portal for daily tasks like email access or file sharing, PAM would oversee any attempts by high-level accounts to modify critical system settings.

Combining both frameworks allows organizations to implement best practices in securing both standard user accounts and those with elevated privileges effectively.

PAM vs. Least Privilege

The principle of least privilege means giving users the minimum level of access necessary to perform their job functions. This approach limits potential damage from accidents or malicious actions by restricting access rights.

Privileged Access Management (PAM) and the principle of least privilege differ in scope and application. PAM focuses on managing, monitoring, and securing privileged accounts that have elevated permissions within an organization’s IT environment. In contrast, the principle of least privilege is a broader security concept applied across all user accounts to ensure they only have access to what they need.

PAM enforces the principle of least privilege by controlling who can use privileged accounts and under what circumstances. For example, PAM solutions often require multifactor authentication for accessing sensitive systems or data, ensuring that only authorized individuals gain entry.

Combining PAM with the principle of least privilege offers several benefits:

• Enhanced Security: By limiting privileges and closely monitoring privileged account activities.

• Reduced Risk: Minimizes potential damage from compromised credentials.

• Compliance: Helps meet regulatory requirements related to data protection.

However, implementing both strategies comes with challenges such as complexity in setup and ongoing management efforts required to maintain strict controls over user permissions while ensuring operational efficiency remains intact.

By integrating these two approaches effectively, organizations can achieve optimal security without compromising productivity.

Traditional Privileged Access Management

The traditional approach to privileged access management has been to automatically change the passwords for privileged accounts several times per day, and store the passwords in a password vault. A jump server or client software is then used to authenticate the user, obtain the current password from the vault, and log in to the target server.

Alternatively, a web portal may be provided for obtaining the current password for the target account and displaying it to the user. The password would typically be valid for a fixed period, such as one hour, or until expressly released by the user.

The traditional analyst worldview on PAM has been on the traditional approach. They compare products based on their password rotation, password vaulting, etc features. But the next generation needs none of this. It solves privileged access management differently.

Problems of Traditional Privileged Access Management in the Cloud

PAM deployments are notoriously difficult. Read, for example, http://security-architect.com/privileged-account-management-pam-is-very-important-but-deploying-it-stinks/.

The traditional approach changes the way system administrators work and many administrators hate it. It also requires substantial infrastructure, with some large organizations reportedly needing over a hundred vaults/jump servers to scale to their infrastructure. Password vaults become a single point of failure. For automation, every script has to be changed to obtain the password from a vault.

The traditional approach also does not scale into cloud, containers, and particularly elastically scaling computing environments. It becomes very cumbersome to implement password vaulting when computing instances go up and down as needed and often only live for a few seconds.

Furthermore, the traditional approach often requires installing (and patching!) software on servers and clients. This is costly and resource-intensive.

Read more about PAM in the cloud >

What to look for in new Privileged Access Management

New technology has made it possible to implement privileged access management without password vaulting and without new software or agents installed on servers or clients. This substantially speeds up deployment, reduces overhead, and helps scale to cloud and elastic environments.

A truly modern and future-proof Privileged Access Management for multi-cloud needs and agile architecture. It is designed for elastic cloud environments from the start. It gets rid of passwords, password vaulting, and password rotation. Deployment becomes way easier and faster. The total project cost is greatly reduced, and the time to full deployment easily drops by a factor of ten.

PAM without password vaults and password rotation...

Next-gen PAM uses short-lived ephemeral certificates, invisible to the end-user, to enable access over secure SSH and RDP connections. Your privileged users get a one-click jump host to the right cloud hosts via SSO and with optional MFA.

This approach is passwordless and keyless since just-in-time access is used for authentication, but the authorization to the target expires automatically, leaving no keys or passwords behind to manage, forget, or lose.

...except when you need them for privileged access

The reality is that going passwordless and keyless is not possible overnight. Customers have legacy environments that require key management, password vaulting, and rotation.

For this reason, the next-gen PAM needs to be hybrid and supports various credential management methods. It allows customers to manage access to their legacy critical infrastructures while migrating to more modern access approaches at the same time as they modernize their applications.

Privileged 3rd & party access centralized

Agile business units need to grant all types of secure access to critical resources: permanent, temporary, internal, and external. With PrivX, all your sessions are granted, secured, and controlled through one, centralized system. Say goodbye to backdoors and rogue keys.

PAM for Multi-cloud, hybrid cloud, and on-prem

Next-gen PAM software makes managing privileged user access scalable, lean, and rapid to deploy to multi-cloud and hybrid. Administrators enjoy role-based access control (RBAC) and re-use of existing AD/LDAP groups to automate access provisioning.

Users make 1-click SSH or RDP connections from their browser –without sharing credentials, using SSH keys or password vaults. No need to install anything on the client or the server.

Autodiscover global cloud instances with PAM

Next-gen PAM solution comes with an auto-discovery feature that automatically scans your environment for all the available cloud hosts at all times from all regions. Your admins get a single pane of glass to cloud hosts. Your developers always know which host they can access.

Save valuable time on deploying privileged access management

Installation, deployment, and configuration of future-proof PAM only takes a day. After that, maintenance work is lightweight and straightforward. Don’t worry about dedicating a team to handle a high-cost, high-maintenance product: the PAM solution leaves no footprint in your environment and updates automatically.

Integrate PAM with AD, LDAP & IdaaS

Next-gen PAM helps you avoid duplicate work. You use your existing user identities from your AD/LDAP and the solution fetches user groups for you automatically. It’s not like basic PAMs where you have to duplicate your users manually or worry about keeping two separate systems up-to-date!

FAQ

Why are administrator accounts and privileged service accounts particularly susceptible to attacks by cybercriminals?

Administrator and privileged service accounts are prime targets because they have elevated permissions that can grant access to critical systems. If compromised, cybercriminals can manipulate data, disable security controls, and gain unauthorized control over IT infrastructure.

What are some common risks associated with unmanaged privileged accounts that can lead to compromise?

Unmanaged privileged accounts are at risk of being exploited due to weak passwords, lack of monitoring, and outdated credentials, potentially allowing unauthorized access, data breaches, and lateral movement within networks.

Can you provide examples of PAM solutions that are effective in both on-premises and cloud environments?

Examples of PAM solutions include centralized credential management, multi-factor authentication, session recording, and automated auditing, all of which can secure privileged access for both on-premises and cloud environments.

How does PAM help organizations improve their identity and access management strategy?

PAM enhances identity and access management by ensuring only authorized users gain access to critical systems, enforcing the principle of least privilege, and providing detailed auditing for compliance and security purposes.