What Is PAM and Why Do You Need It?

What Is Privileged Access Management?

“PAM” is a cybersecurity term that refers to the strategies, policies and technologies an organization uses to manage privileged access and permissions. This privileged access is a user's ability to access resources ordinary users can't and typically includes access to sensitive information and mission-critical systems. For example, an IT specialist needs more privileges than the average employee.

Types of Privileged Accounts

It's important to define the difference between privileged and non-privileged accounts. While privileged accounts have access to advanced or elevated privileges, non-privileged accounts are all other accounts that lack high-level permissions. 

The two types of non-privileged accounts include:

• Standard users: These typical business user accounts provide access to only what they need to do their jobs, such as internet browsing, SaaS tools, email and word processing applications.
• Guest users: These accounts have extremely limited privileges, such as basic access to internet browsing and applications.

There are many types of privileged user accounts, and they can apply to cloud or on-premise applications. For example, your social media director may need privileged access to your organization's cloud-based social profiles, while IT specialists may need privileged access to local computers.

The most common types include:

• Superusers: Also known as a root, supervisor or admin account, a superuser account has the most expansive privileges. These users can make changes to your system, execute commands and adjust permissions for other users.
• Domain admins: This Windows account can modify the active directory in ways such as changing user permissions and creating and deleting users.
• Local admins: Although a local admin can access and modify a local Windows computer, they lack the ability to modify the active directory.
• Secure Socket Shell (SSH) keys: These are access credentials system admins use similarly to usernames and passwords to implement Single Sign-On (SSO) systems. Like human users, automated processes can also use SSH keys to authenticate into your firewalls, switches and routers.
• Emergency users: In the event of a crisis, emergency accounts enable non-privileged users to override access controls in secure applications.
• Privileged business users: Those in privileged roles such as finance, human resources and marketing require more extensive access to sensitive information than most non-privileged users.
• Application users: These accounts provide access to your databases and enable them to grant access to other apps in your ecosystem.
• Active Directory (AD) users: AD accounts enable services to interact with your OS, organize your data and manage user and machine accounts.
• Secrets: This nickname refers to credentials, keys and tokens that allow both service and user accounts to enter privileged systems. Protecting your organization's secrets is a critical aspect of cybersecurity.
• Services: These are some of the highest-risk accounts in your environment and can interact with the OS, run scheduled tasks and make changes to your system.

Why Is PAM Important?

A comprehensive PAM solution reduces the risk of cyberattacks resulting from unmanaged accounts by:

• Allowing for better monitoring and control.
• Ensuring compliance with regulations.
• Ensuring a full audit trail of who had access to what resources.
• Preventing privilege creep.
• Eliminating the risk of privilege abuse.
• Managing and securing infrastructure accounts.
• Removing local admin rights on workstations.

By limiting the access privileges of your standard users, a robust PAM solution significantly reduces vulnerability for cloud, hybrid and on-premise systems. It also helps your organization more easily achieve compliance with critical industry and government regulations.

Privileged Access Management Implementation Best Practices

Using a manual system, such as spreadsheets, to track and manage privileged accounts is impractical for most modern business environments. That's why enterprises need to invest in automated PAM solutions. These tools allow admins to:

• Grant and revoke privileged access without interrupting operations.
• Record privileged access sessions.
• Monitor sessions for ease of auditing and compliance.
• Manage user credentials.
• Create a centralized platform for managing your most sensitive privileges.

Essentially, a next-generation PAM solution can manage privileges and accounts for you so your IT staff can focus on completing their day-to-day tasks.

Following PAM best practices can help make adopting a new solution simple. Consider the following when creating your implementation strategy:

1. Get C-Suite Buy-In

Relying on technology is rarely enough to make significant changes — every level of your organization needs to buy in to your solution. Getting the full support of your C-suite is especially important because your top executives determine what direction the whole company will take. When they fully buy in to your solution, they can effectively communicate your vision to the rest of your organization.

2. Create a Formal PAM Policy

Before anything else, you need to create a strong policy for your privileged access management solution. Create an ordered list of what privileges will cause the greatest impact on your organization if exploited. Who needs access to these privileges and for how long? These answers will inform different guidelines for your policy.

As with any policy change, documentation is key for lasting success. Clearly define each role in your organization and outline the privileges and access rights for each role. It's also important to set an expiry date for sensitive credentials like passwords, as doing so reduces the risk of attack and mitigates the potential impact of those attacks.

3. Take Inventory of All Third-Party Systems

Consistency is key for effective cybersecurity initiatives. Follow PoLP and limit privileged access across all your cloud applications, SaaS tools and other systems.

Require your employees to follow PAM policies when using any resource, whether it's an internal privilege or an external source. This is especially important when dealing with third-party vendors or independent contractors, as it can help prevent them from gaining access to unmanaged privileged accounts.

4. Follow Cybersecurity Best Practices

Tighten your existing security protocol by frequently rotating credentials, using SSO and implementing passwordless and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) solutions. These steps can reduce the risk of malicious actors gaining access to your system through stolen credentials.

Additionally, you'll want to regularly train your team on cybersecurity best practices to maximize your solution's potential effectiveness. Some important topics may include:

• Identifying and reporting phishing attempts.
• Creating strong passwords.
• Managing documents and other files.
• Eliminating password sharing.

Additionally, vault, rotate and manage secrets for both on-premise and cloud-based privileged accounts. Possible examples include machine learning environments, infrastructure automation platforms and containerization systems.

5. Enforce the Principle of Least Privilege

Limit access as much as possible for both service and user accounts. Entities should only be able to access the specific resources they need to fulfill their role. 

Begin by auditing your entire environment to identify privileged accounts, then remove any unnecessary administrative privileges you find. Separate true privileged accounts from standard accounts and store their credentials in a highly secure digital vault to keep them safe.

To maximize privileged account protection, you can regularly rotate administrative credentials or enable time-limited access.

6. Get C-Suite Buy-In

Relying on technology is rarely enough to make significant changes — every level of your organization needs to buy in to your solution. Getting the full support of your C-suite is especially important because your top executives determine what direction the whole company will take. When they fully buy in to your solution, they can effectively communicate your vision to the rest of your organization.

7. Keep Policies Updated

Keeping your policies and procedures up to date prevents cybercriminals from taking advantage of outdated protocols. It's best to reevaluate your privileged access policies any time your organization experiences a significant change, such as:

• When your organization scales.
• When your organization restructures.
• When you adopt a new technology.

These changes are times when you're most likely to experience shifts in security and risk management requirements, which is why it's so important to regularly revisit your policies and update them to meet your evolving needs.

For more tips on successfully implementing PAM in a modern business environment, download our best practices e-book.