Privileged Access Management Software

Use Privileged Access Management Software to Ensure Security

By Read Dive 3 years ago
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Privileged Access Management (PAM) is the process of controlling who has access to privileged accounts and what they can do with them. An “administrative account” or “root account” is one that has superuser privileges on a computer, allowing the holder to read and modify any data on an entire system. This means that if your organization uses these types of accounts for its day-to-day operations, it’s a major security risk.

A privileged account is any user or system account with administrative rights to the data being accessed. Typically, these users have escalated privileges and can read and modify data on a system as if they were the system administrator. In addition to security risks, privileged accounts are a common source of attacks due to phishing, social engineering and weak passwords.

Controlling access to privileged accounts allows an organization to protect against these security risks, minimize damage from a potential attack and identify where the initial compromise occurred. In order to ensure that only authorized users can access them, administrators should periodically review who has been granted administrative privileges at https://www.m1.com.sg/business/solutions/managed-security-solutions/privileged-access-management on their systems and limit this privilege where possible. For example, instead of sharing administrative privileges between all employees on a project team, the administrator can assign access to only those who need it.

In addition to supervising who has access to these privileges, it is essential that organizations regularly monitor their systems for suspicious activity associated with privileged accounts. It’s also important to periodically review who has been granted access to these privileges and limit their use wherever possible, in addition to training users on how these privileges work and what the potential consequences are of sharing passwords or falling for a social engineering scam.

Accounts

Privileged accounts are granted extensive system-level privileges that allow them to perform tasks such as managing the IT infrastructure, deploying and configuring software updates, accessing confidential business information or managing employees’ computer accounts. Privileged accounts are typically managed by the IT staff and used infrequently, which also makes it difficult to ensure that access is not being abused.

In addition to helping prevent breaches from happening, Privileged Account Management (PAM) can help with compliance efforts. In industries such as finance or healthcare, data protection regulations require organizations to monitor privileged access and reduce the risk of leakage. This can be achieved by limiting access to authorized users, controlling where privileged credentials are used and developing processes for auditing and reporting incidents of abuse.

Service Benefits

Privileged access management helps in controlling, reducing risk and minimizing damage of potential attacks.

Conclusion

Identity Access Management (IAM) is an approach to limit access

to IT systems and processes, usually through the use of credentials (e.g., usernames, passwords, etc.) which are granted on an as-needed basis. IAM also includes identity federation – allowing people to be automatically authenticated into several systems using an external authentication service such as SAML or OpenID Connect.

Privileged Access Management (PAM) is a subset of IAM that specifically exists in the IT security space, and focuses on control over privileged accounts in an organization. These are logins which have rights to perform certain actions – for example, power off a server, change system settings or reset user passwords. PAM includes integration with identity management systems, so that when a user is granted privileged access, this fact is recorded and audited by the IAM system.

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