In 2021, there was a 50% increase in the number of attacks on corporate networks compared to the previous year. This is pointed out by Check Point Research (CPR), Check Point’s Threat Intelligence division. And many of these attacks involve exploiting this type of credential. According to the Verizon Data Breach Investigation 2021 report, 61% of surveyed data leaks involved privileged credentials. And the cost of this type of attack is also higher. According to IBM in the Cost of Data Breach Report 2021, while the average cost of a data leak is usually $ 4.24 million, when the data leak involves privileged credentials, this value can reach $ 4.37 million.
And, as it seems, with the increasing evolution of technology, cyber threats are expected to intensify further in 2022. This is because new technological tools widely adopted by organizations increase the attack surface, giving room for malicious agents to act.
One of the ways to minimize these risks is by investing in Privileged Access Management (PAM), which ensures the application of the least privilege, providing each user with only the necessary permissions to perform their activities.
In addition, this solution involves numerous other features and benefits, which we will explore in this article. To facilitate your reading, we divided our text into topics. They are:
Before explaining what Privileged Access Management is, we need to understand what privileged access or credential is. Privileged access is one of the most sensitive aspects of IT. Through privileged credentials, significant changes can be made to devices and applications installed on an infrastructure, which in many cases can affect business continuity. The impact of using them in a malicious way can cause serious damage, from violations of compliance items, which can lead to heavy penalties, to security incidents – which result in reduced trust by the interested parties and lost revenue.
Privileged Access Management, also called Privileged Identity Management, enables organizations to protect their privileged credentials. In addition, PAM also ensures the effectiveness of least privilege policies by reducing attack vectors and possible data leaks.
Gartner believes that a PAM solution helps organizations securely provide privileged access to critical assets and meet compliance requirements by managing and monitoring privileged access and accounts. Basically, a PAM solution works as a secure credential repository for devices installed in the environment. Based on the management of user privileges, one can allow users to access only the data required for them to perform their activities. Thus, the Security team can configure user access profiles, avoiding improper access to systems and data.
For example, in an organization, they might have two users with privileges to access and modify settings on a messaging server, such as Microsoft Exchange. The configuration of this type of server is performed only by users with administrator privileges. Only these users can delete or create employee or third-party email accounts. Other examples of business-critical applications include ERP or CRM software. From the principles of Privileged Access Management, one can reduce the security risks related to using these applications and associated devices.
Finally, with Privileged Access Management (PAM), it is also possible to detect unauthorized actions that endanger information security and business continuity.
Privileged accounts and access have a strategic role within a business, after all, these resources are the ones that allow the management of a company’s IT infrastructure, in addition to enabling its employees to access the data necessary to make critical decisions such as:
- Making changes to the system and software configuration;
- Performing administrative tasks;
- Creating and modifying user accounts;
- Installing software;
- Backing up data;
- Updating security and patches;
- Enabling interactive logins; and
- Accessing privileged data.
Despite their relevance, these accounts pose a major cyber risk to organizations, as they are targeted by malicious attackers who wish to move through the network, accessing systems and data, without being detected or tracked.
This is because a privileged account does not necessarily need to be directed to human users and often provides high privileges to execute specific permissions, which are not always associated with the positions and roles of employees.
On the contrary, in most companies, many people share the same accounts, including the IT team, information security professionals, and outsourced employees, which generates cyber threats aggravated by the fact that people tend to reuse weak and easy-to-remember passwords.
In this sense, if you want to avoid cyber threats in your organization, we strongly recommend you protect your privileged accounts.
Local Administrator Accounts
These accounts are not personal and provide local access on devices. Used by the IT team to configure workstations or perform maintenance, they usually use the same password on different platforms, in a shared way, becoming the target of malicious agents.
In practice, local administrator accounts enable hackers to discover and measure the security levels of an organization and are primarily responsible for excessive employee-oriented privileges.
They can also be used to control resources, create local users, and assign access control permissions and user rights.
You may not be aware of all the privileged accounts your company has.
Privileged User Accounts
Here, we refer to normal accounts, but with access to sensitive privileged data, which explains the threat they pose to malicious actors.
These are accounts that require close monitoring, as they can be shared between administrators, providing authority through the network.
Therefore, it is recommended to track and secure all privileged user accounts, using Privileged Access Management (PAM) to determine who exactly has access to these accounts, how often they are requested, and what type of access has been made.
Emergency Accounts
Emergency accounts are enabled only when a critical event occurs, which requires the restoration of systems and services or responses to cyber incidents.
These accounts are used when the normal service is unavailable and provide access to non-privileged users.
This process should require proper monitoring for audits but usually takes place manually, without proper maintenance and records.
Domain Administrator Accounts
Domain administrator accounts allow one to accomplish almost everything within an IT structure. That is, they should receive effective monitoring, as they pose a great risk in case of compromise, since they have access to all servers and workstations of a Windows domain.
Through these accounts, domain administrators fully control the ability to modify the association of all administrative accounts.
For this reason, domain administrator accounts should be restricted to the maximum extent, and their users should be added with caution. Moreover, it is of paramount importance to audit all actions performed with this type of privilege.
Service Accounts
The functionality of these local or privileged domain accounts is to enable applications and services to interact with operating systems, and an application may require domain access.
In the case of local service accounts, they hardly have their passwords modified, as this process can interfere with dependent systems. In addition, these passwords may be embedded, which makes it easier for hackers to work.
Application Accounts
The role of these accounts is to enable applications to access resources such as databases, networks, and automated tasks and provide access to other applications. In general, they provide access to a lot of the organization’s data and are shared.
The problem is that, in order for everyone to have access to them, they are usually stored in unencrypted text files, which can also be accessed by malicious agents.
Through remote access, these cybercriminals can modify system binaries or change default accounts to privileged ones and use them to move around the network.
Domain Service Accounts
Generally used for backup, analytics, software deployment, and security patch update solutions, domain service accounts allow you to bring together applications and systems that communicate and provide access to resources needed to call APIs, access databases, and issue reports.
Changing the passwords for these accounts is a complex process, so many organizations do not modify them or have specific procedures to deal with them.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) makes it possible to reduce insider and external cyber threats in an organization in many ways. One of them is protecting credentials with sensitive data in a location with managed access.
In this way, it is possible to control access to information such as those related to intellectual property, finances, business progress, trade secrets, and the personal data of customers.
Moreover, regardless of whether they are working in person or at home, employees of an organization have access only to the resources necessary to perform their tasks.
Another role of Privileged Access Management (PAM) is to limit access to external content on websites and applications that can make organizations more vulnerable to cyber threats.
A PAM solution should be able to:
- Allow a company to set a number of flexible parameters for privileged access control, such as window access, access restrictions for specific users or target systems, or access limitation to resources required to perform a task;
- Be a single repository of administrative credentials across all systems and environments within an organization, resulting in reduced audit time and incident investigations;
- Link role-based user control to critical systems, applications, and services, thus allowing the connection between a privileged user and an individual, which improves the granularity of control and visibility;
- Provide a scalable, searchable and comprehensive audit and reporting solution for user activities on critical systems, with the ability to view commands and sessions on those systems;
- Centralize privilege visibility and control across a single management, policy and reporting platform for all devices and users, resulting in increased efficiency and unification of the management approach across the environment;
- Integrate user activity auditing such as Syslog with other monitoring and reporting technologies such as SIEM;
- Strengthen the policies of least privilege for granular control of administrative rights, while facilitating elevation of privileges without the need to assign administrator or root access;
- Escalate management of all credentials across a range of operating systems and platforms.
Through an architecture that requires no agent installation, senhasegura offers a centralized access point for critical systems. Its features allow strengthening the access control, limiting the user access only to what was previously authorized, respecting the principle of least privilege.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) tools are divided into three categories: Privileged Account and Session Management (PASM), Privileged Elevation and Delegation Management (PEDM), and Secrets Management. Learn more about each of them:
PASM
With PASM solutions, credentials are created securely and distributed only through PAM, similar to what happens with a password manager. Thus, every time users need access, they receive only one temporary account with privileges. This account is used only once, while all activities are monitored and recorded. Key features of PASM solutions include:
- Real-time Monitoring: by monitoring privileged sessions in real-time, one can interrupt unauthorized sessions as well as suspicious activities;
- Password Manager: PASM offers a password manager with encryption to store private keys, passwords, and privileged account credentials;
- Remote Session: to provide better visibility of the actions of each privileged user, operations are carried out through remote sessions;
- Password Rotation: passwords must be changed after a certain period, on a certain day and time, or after their use by users;
- Audit Resources: PASM solutions provide detailed information on privileged accounts through audit reports and resources;
- Access Control for Shared Accounts: access to shared accounts must be possible from the use of the multifactor authentication or additional approvals;
- Session Recording: Another functionality of PASM solutions is to allow the recording, storing, and organization of privileged sessions so that they can be reproduced or audited.
PEDM
Unlike PASM solutions, which provide temporary privileges, PEDM solutions grant privileges according to the role of a user, defining who can have access and what type of access is granted.
In practice, this tool allows the application of the principle of least privilege, as it assigns specific privileges to each user according to the actions they must perform.
It also allows one to protect critical systems using local system application, process management, and session control.
Secrets Management
Authentication credentials, such as passwords, SSH keys, API keys, and OAuth tokens, are considered secrets and their management must be adequate.
Although it is a broader scope, secrets also have the function of providing cybersecurity and avoiding unauthorized access to data and systems.
Efficient secret management prevents the invasion of network elements, enables the management of services in cloud environments, protects critical systems, and brings organizations into compliance with standards and legislation aimed at cybersecurity and data protection.
Identity and Access Management (IAM) and PAM are tools that have the function of controlling an organization’s data in common and complement each other with their different capabilities.
Through IAM, it is possible to manage users and legitimize access to resources easily, but it presents vulnerabilities when it comes to privileged accounts.
Therefore, the use of PAM is recommended, which works more elaborately and comprehensively, informing which sessions were started, what was performed, and who has access to the data.
That is, Privileged Access Management (PAM) makes it possible to control everything related to this information, limiting access and ensuring its secure storage.
Benefits of Privileged Access Management
Privileged Access Management (PAM) promotes security against cyber threats from internal or external sources. The following advantages stand out:
Malware Protection
Many types of malware require high privileges to propagate. Thus, by reducing the excess of privileges through Privileged Access Management (PAM), one can prevent its installation or reduce its spread.
Improved Operational Efficiency
Restricting permissions to the minimum range of processes to operate helps to avoid incompatibility between systems or applications. Consequently, downtime is avoided.
Compliance
By providing more security, Privileged Access Management (PAM) enables an organization to benefit from audits and bring it into compliance with important regulations, such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, FDDC, Government Connect, FISMA, and SOX, and respect the legislation, such as GDPR, LGPD, and CCPA.
Privileged Access Management Best Practices
The Principle of Least Privilege
The principle of least privilege is one of the bases for information security. Its main goal is to grant users access to environments that are required for them to perform their tasks. In other words, with the principle of least privilege, users do not access environments they do not require, avoiding internal threats, data leaks, and hacker infiltration in critical environments of a company.
Through the senhasegura solution, you have several security locks that ensure users access only the environments required by them. Besides monitoring the way the user is performing privileged access, the senhasegura solution registers, records, and notifies those responsible for information security about any malicious activity within the privileged session.
Through this simple practice, they significantly minimize the chances of a cybercriminal accessing sensitive company data and extracting information.
The approach to protecting privileged access involves its entire life cycle, including actions taken before, during, and after access, which is impossible without PAM tools.
However, we emphasize that ensuring cybersecurity does not only involve the implementation of sophisticated solutions. It is also necessary to optimize processes, in addition to raising awareness and training people.
Regarding the life cycle of privileged access, some steps must be followed, and the first one is to identify, register, and manage devices and their credentials, which can be a challenge in the face of complex environments with devices from different vendors and models.
This measure allows a better visualization of the attack surface that can be used by hackers to gain unauthorized access to an organization’s data.
The second step relates to the operations carried out during privileged access, which involves its management. In this sense, the professionals responsible for information security should monitor and record the actions taken during the accesses.
This makes it possible to evaluate cyber incidents that may occur, identify their causes, and solve them, ensuring compliance with audit requirements and meeting the deadlines for reporting data leaks stipulated in data protection laws.
Finally, the third step refers to the use of a tool that allows tracking previously-performed actions, which allows detecting abuses of privileges and violations and facilitates the audit process.
DevSecOps brings together security practices in the DevOps process, enabling launch engineers and security teams to work collaboratively through agile and secure software development methods.
PAM contributes to DevSecOps throughout the software development cycle in several ways.
Firstly, Privileged Access Management (PAM) allows scanning the secrets so that companies have visibility into where the data and credentials are stored and who performs each action at what time.
It also allows the administration of shared secrets and passwords embedded into codes, making it possible to track activities in the IT environment, ensuring the integrity of the software and compliance with security standards.
Another benefit is that users only have the necessary access to carry out their activities, which protects the IT environment in case an account is compromised.
When a company should consider a PAM solution
Lack of control over access to certain data within an enterprise can result in major disruptions, including loss of business continuity. Many adopted systems end up vulnerable due to a lack of effective supervision.
This lack of control leaves room for the leak of information, much of it sensitive, inside or outside the company. But after all, how to guarantee the privacy of these contents?
The PAM solutions turn out to be quite efficient in this case, as they use security strategies and technologies that, together, are capable of controlling privileged access.
Moreover, they restrict which users will be allowed to enter certain accounts, applications, devices, processes, and internal systems, and control them. This prevents external attacks, which can occur as a result of an employee’s lack of attention, or sharing of sensitive information within the company.
How senhasegura PAM works
senhasegura is developed by MT4 Tecnologia, a company that has more than 20 years of market and partners on five continents, covering 54 countries.
Our solutions began to be offered to meet the demand of one of the largest banks in the world, which needed to solve problems related to the management of privileged access to its critical structure.
With this, we received recognition from Gartner, one of the most important technology consultancies today, which addressed the solution in its Market Guide for Privileged Access Management report in 2016.
In addition, we, from senhasegura, were considered a Pam Challenger solution in the Gartner Magic Quadrant 2020 and 2021 reports and received the second-highest score in their 2021 Critical Capability (CC) report, which evaluated our technology as above the market average.
We also received the Customer’s Choice recognition twice in the Voice of the Customer 2021 report, being certified by Gartner as a Customer’s Choice in general and for medium-sized companies. Moreover, we obtained the highest score in Support Experience, with a score of 4.9 (out of 5).
We also received the Customer First badge, which recognizes vendors who request reviews from all customers in Gartner Peer Insights.
Among our advantages, the following stand out:
Quick Deployment and Simple Maintenance
Our solution offers a full-stack plug-and-play platform with quick deployment and simple maintenance. Each component of the product is connected so that your company has a faster return on investment (ROI) and no additional infrastructure costs.
Full Lifecycle Management of Privileged Accesses
Our goal is to eliminate the excess of privileges in the organizations that hire us, since privileged accounts and access are fundamental concepts for information security, and today there is a high volume of privileged credentials in the world.
With our PAM platform, one can gather all privileged identities and access them in one place and follow the complete privileged access management lifecycle, which ensures governance before, during, and after these accesses.
No Extra Costs
Being offered in virtual machine format, our solution does not require hidden costs for additional licensing, such as database licenses and operating systems.
This is because senhasegura has features that enable new integrations every four hours, including legacy infrastructure.
In this way, the organization can more accurately plan its investment by deploying PAM in its IT environment.
Customized Offer of High-Performance Hardware Appliances
Designed for PAM, senhasegura PAM Crypto Appliance offers advanced security requirements that enable you to meet physical security requirements.
senhasegura can be used in High Availability and Disaster Recovery architectures, in active-active, and active-passive configuration scenarios, regardless of the number of cluster members, resulting in better scalability.
DevOps Secrets Management
With senhasegura, companies still ensure better threat visibility and more security in the implementation of DevSecOps, since its resources include scanning the DevOps pipeline and onboarding process through integration with CI/CD tools, increasing the visibility of secrets.
Integrated Digital Certificate Management
Our platform is the only one that provides an Integrated Digital Certificate Management solution, which allows one to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and costs for implementation and training.
Solutions for Cloud Infrastructure
The PAM platform includes solutions focused on cloud computing, reducing costs for organizations that do not have identity privilege management and cloud governance. Thus, it promotes Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM), which grants visibility to unnecessary privileges, without impacting the agility necessary for the work of developers.
We also work for:
- Avoiding the interruption of activities of companies, which may impair their performance;
- Performing automatic audits on the use of privileges;
- Performing automatic audits on privileged changes to detect privilege abuses;
- Providing advanced PAM solutions;
- Reducing cyber risks;
- Bringing organizations into compliance with audit criteria and standards such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, and Sarbanes-Oxley.
Now, learn about our different modules and their main capabilities:
- Endpoint PAM
Our Endpoint PAM solution makes it possible to protect enterprise networks connected to devices such as laptops, tablets, and mobile phones from the action of malicious actors, allowing one to perform functions that require privileges and start applications with automatic insertion of credentials.
For this, applications that use this type of privilege are listed and have their use limited to authorized users. Moreover, one can use a token for authentication on the device.
Another capability is the configuration of blacklists, which allows one to include unauthorized applications and map devices on workstations.
- Domum Remote Access
This product allows one to manage remote access for employees and third parties within an IT structure, protecting privileged credentials and strengthening information security against hacker intrusion into corporate networks.
Through senhasegura Domum, it is possible to rely on the remote session capabilities of senhasegura PAM, which provide access based on the Zero Trust model and ensure compliance with the access controls of the new legislation, among its benefits.
In addition, this solution exempts the need for a VPN or additional configuration for remote users.
- PAM SaaS
Compliance with cybersecurity management standards, regulations, and policies is also a benefit provided by PAM SaaS.
This tool aims to ensure information security in the context of cloud computing by managing the credentials used by administrators to access critical systems.
Suitable for companies of all industries and sizes, PAM SaaS allows one to simplify efforts and reduce operating costs for privileged access management.
- PAM Core
PAM Core aims to control the use of generic and privileged credentials, enabling secure storage, segregation of access, and full traceability of use.
In this way, it is possible to prevent cyberattacks, as well as leaks of critical data, in addition to recording and monitoring activities carried out during privileged sessions, avoiding the misuse of privileges, managing and resetting passwords, and issuing audit reports with ease.
- DSM
DevOps Secrets Management (DSM) adds security to the software development process by reducing risks related to improper access to sensitive data and lowering costs with Cloud IAM embedded in the solution.
This technology makes the use of DevOps (Development and Operations) methodologies more secure, without taking the focus away from the automation and agility needed for efficient delivery.
- Cloud IAM
Our Cloud IAM is used to control users’ access to cloud resources and services.
This solution makes it possible to isolate, record, and monitor all sessions, reconfigure default passwords, and assign individual responsibilities to privileged users.
It also incorporates task automation tools to provide new accounts with transparency and allows the integration of two layers of security for privileged accounts, among other capabilities.
- Digital Certificate Management
Many companies have their activities interrupted due to the expiration of digital certificates, since their management tends to be carried out through spreadsheets (manually), which can cause human failures.
The good news is that it is possible to manage the lifecycle of digital certificates through senhasegura Certificate Manager, which allows one to increase the level of security of applications with secure certificates, respecting the requirements and security policies of the organization.
- PAM Crypto Appliance
This solution, based on a hardware appliance, has the benefits of its availability, regardless of the infrastructure and the virtualization tool, as well as the high availability and disaster recovery technologies built into the product.
It protects against physical attack, storage of symmetric keys in hardware, encryption key protection in hardware, and destruction of data in case of appliance violation.
- PAM Crypto Virtual Appliance
PAM Crypto Virtual Appliance is aimed at customers who have a virtualization infrastructure and wish to opt for this type of architecture.
This tool was developed to run in virtual or cloud environments, ensuring the necessary security and performance requirements.
- PAM Load Balancer
PAM Load Balancer is our load balancing solution and has the benefits of eliminating costs with suppliers of balancing technologies, optimizing resources, which ensures greater bandwidth, less latency and fault tolerance, as well as less time for troubleshooting.
Does a Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution prevent all types of cyberattacks?
No. With the constant evolution of technology, the tools used by hackers are increasingly sophisticated. Therefore, there is no tool capable of preventing all types of cyberattacks. Moreover, the implementation of PAM involves three aspects: tools, people, and processes. In any case, it is useless to invest in the state-of-the-art PAM solutions without investing in establishing adequate PAM processes and cybernetic awareness of employees and third parties.
However, a PAM solution helps reduce risks by providing more network security. In addition, this tool must be optimized frequently to monitor the evolution of cyberattacks.
Can cyberattacks be carried out using privileged credentials?
Yes, cybercriminals are looking for ways to use privileged credentials to carry out cyberattacks. According to the Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report, 61% of cyberattacks involve the exploitation of privileged credentials. In this sense, Privileged Access Management (PAM) is essential to ensure visibility and prevent them from infiltrating organizations’ networks.
Do all companies make use of Privileged Access Management (PAM)?
Unfortunately, not every organization invests in Privileged Access Management (PAM) and many suffer the consequences since invasions generate financial losses, loss of credibility, and even the closure of companies.
Does PAM implementation require the use of shared accounts?
No. Quite the opposite. The use of shared accounts poses a risk to the security of an organization. Therefore, it is recommended not to adopt this practice.
Does PAM make it possible to create non-privileged accesses?
Yes. PAM has modern corporate tools that allow it to go beyond the creation of privileged accesses and accounts, creating other types of access.
This is because Privileged Access Management (PAM) should facilitate connection to the system through security services, such as session and password management, and activity monitoring and logging.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) is extremely useful to avoid this type of problem, as it allows one to offer limited access to critical data, manage, and monitor privileged accounts and access.
This solution also allows addressing the life cycle of privileged access, before, during, and after access. In addition, it enables:
- Storing and recording remote sessions;
- Identifying changes in the user behavior patterns;
- Blocking sessions in case of suspicious behavior; and
- Providing secure remote access to employees and third parties through senhasegura Domum.
In summary…
In this article, you saw that:
- Privileged credentials allow changes to be made to applications, devices, and systems accessed by machines and human users;
- Their use has grown in recent times due to the adoption of new technologies, also increasing cyber risks;
- To reduce these threats, it is recommended to invest in Privileged Access Management (PAM);
- With PAM, it is possible to adopt the principle of least privilege, which guarantees each user and machine have only the necessary permissions to perform their functions.
- PAM also makes it possible to manage access in a centralized way;
- Privileged Access Management (PAM) also allows the detection of unauthorized actions;
- There are different types of privileged accounts, including local administrator accounts, privileged user accounts, emergency accounts, domain administrator accounts, service accounts, and application accounts;
- Endpoints and workstations are targeted by hackers, but can be protected through Privileged Access Management (PAM);
- PAM provides compliance with important cybersecurity standards and protects companies against fines for non-compliance with data protection laws, such as the LGPD;
- Privileged Access Management (PAM) limits access to external content on websites and applications, which can generate vulnerability to cybersecurity;
- Privileged access is a type of special access, with permissions that go beyond an ordinary user;
- The vulnerabilities created with this type of access can be mitigated with investment in Privileged Access Management (PAM);
- The benefits of PAM include: malware protection, operational performance, and compliance;
- PAM tools are divided into three categories: PASM, PEDM, and secrets;
- IAM and PAM are tools that control a company’s data and complement each other;
- The approach to protecting privileged access covers its entire life cycle;
- PAM contributes to DevSecOps throughout the software development cycle.
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