Organizations need a Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution to protect their privileged accounts from misuse and compromise. However, not all PAM solutions are created the same. Traditional on-premises PAM platforms can lack the features needed to provide a dynamic and secure solution. The key features to look for in a modern PAM solution include zero-trust security, cloud-based infrastructure, integration with native tools and easy deployment.
Continue reading to learn more about PAM solutions, why your organization needs one and what key features to look for when selecting a PAM solution.
What Is Privileged Access Management?
Privileged access management refers to securing and managing privileged accounts that have access to an organization’s sensitive systems and data. These privileged accounts can vary from local administrator accounts to non-human service accounts to privileged user accounts. Organizations permit these accounts to access sensitive resources to do their jobs and perform critical business operations. However, if mismanaged, privileged accounts can easily be compromised by threat actors and jeopardize an organization’s security.
PAM allows organizations to practice the principle of least privilege – a cybersecurity concept that gives users just enough access to an organization’s resources to do their jobs, and no more. With a PAM solution, organizations have full control over the amount of privileges each user has, who can access certain accounts and the password security of privileged accounts. PAM solutions should include privileged account management, password management and session management, as well as reporting and auditing tools.
Why Your Organization Needs a PAM Solution
Organizations need a PAM solution to help improve their operations and protect their privileged accounts from cyber attacks. Here are some of the benefits of a PAM solution.
Full visibility into data infrastructure
A PAM solution can give organizations full visibility into their entire data environment, including both cloud and on-premises systems and infrastructure. With a PAM solution, organizations can see and control who is accessing all of their systems, applications, servers and devices that require privileged access.
Reduces attack surface
An attack surface refers to all the possible points where cybercriminals can access a system and steal data. A PAM solution helps reduce an organization’s attack surface by limiting access to privileged accounts and protecting them with strong passwords, automated password rotation and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). It helps prevent the misuse of privileged accounts by insider threats and protects these accounts from becoming compromised by external threats.
Improves productivity
A PAM solution helps improve an organization’s productivity by allowing IT administrators to easily manage privileged accounts from a centralized dashboard rather than configuring individual systems and applications. It also assists with rotating and generating new strong passwords for privileged accounts when needed and simplifies logging in to those privileged accounts with autofill features.
Adhere to regulatory compliance
Most regulatory and industry compliance frameworks require organizations to monitor and audit the activity of privileged user accounts. Compliance frameworks like PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOX, FDDC and FISMA require organizations to follow the principle of least privilege. A PAM solution comes with auditing tools that record user sessions to help organizations comply with these regulations.
Key Features To Look for in a PAM Solution
Not all PAM solutions are created equally. Traditional on-premises PAM solutions were built to use static infrastructure and required everything to be done locally and manually. When looking for a PAM solution, organizations need to look for a modern solution that can easily integrate with their dynamic workflows and provide high-level security. Here are some key features to look for in a modern PAM solution.
Zero-trust security
Zero trust is a cybersecurity framework that gets rid of implicit trust. It requires all users and devices to continuously verify their identity and limits their access to network systems and data. Instead of relying on where the users are logging in from, it focuses on who the users are. Zero trust is built on three core principles:
- Assume breach: Rather than implicitly trusting every user, zero trust follows the assumption that any user trying to access an organization’s network could be compromised and result in a data breach.
- Verify explicitly: Under zero trust, all human users and machines need to continuously prove who they say they are before they can access an organization’s network and all of the systems they need.
- Ensure least privilege: When a user has verified their identity and gained access to the organization’s network, they are given the minimum amount of network access needed to perform their jobs.
PAM solutions must have zero-trust security to prevent threat actors from compromising privileged accounts and gaining unauthorized access to an organization’s sensitive data and systems.
Cloud-based infrastructure
A PAM solution should be cloud-based as it improves an organization’s productivity, provides better automation and typically reduces overall costs. Cloud-based PAM solutions can be accessed and configured at any time and at any place. Organizations won’t have to worry about manually configuring or updating their PAM solution since cloud-based solutions automatically update their software to patch any security vulnerabilities and add new security features. Cloud-based PAM solutions can also easily adapt to new tools and practices that improve an organization’s cybersecurity.
Integration with native tools
When looking for a PAM solution, it needs to have easy integration with an organization’s native administrative and IT tools. Users have a hard time changing their habits and learning new and complicated tools. A good PAM solution should be able to provide security to an organization without changing its workflow. It should be able to integrate with a majority of the native tools that the organization uses, whether the tools are cloud-based or on-premises.
Easy deployment
Many traditional PAM solutions are extremely costly and take a long time to deploy. Organizations need to find a PAM solution that is easy to deploy. A modern, cloud-based PAM solution can be more cost effective and easier to deploy since it doesn’t require any additional hardware or impose implementation fees. Organizations can deploy cloud-based PAM solutions right away.
Why You Should Use Keeper® as Your PAM Solution
Organizations need to look for a modern cloud-based PAM solution to protect their organization’s sensitive data. Traditional on-premises solutions often use technology and features that most organizations can’t or refuse to deploy. When looking for a PAM solution, it needs to include zero-trust security, cloud-based infrastructure, integration with native tools and easy deployment.
KeeperPAM™ is a cloud-based zero-knowledge and zero-trust privileged access management solution with over 75+ integrations. It is agentless and clientless allowing it to deploy faster and easier than traditional on-premises solutions. KeeperPAM combines Keeper Enterprise Password Manager (EPM), Keeper Secrets Manager® (KSM), and Keeper Connection Manager® (KCM) to allow organizations to easily manage and secure passwords, secrets and remote access all in one place.
Request a demo of KeeperPAM to protect your organization’s privileged accounts and sensitive data.
