Privileged Access 
Management (PAM)

Privileged Access Management (PAM) empowers security squads to pinpoint and respond to malicious user actions stemming from misuse of privileges. It facilitates prompt risk mitigation. By implementing a PAM strategy, organizations can guarantee that staff members possess just the essential access rights required for their roles. Beyond detecting malicious actions related to privilege misuse, a PAM system aids an organization to:

• Suppresses the risk of a potential security risk: In case a breach happens, a PAM solution can help minimize its impact on your system.
• Reduces pathways for malicious users: By limiting privileges for people and processes applications, securing them from internal & external vulnerabilities.
• Prevents malware threat spread: Through a Privileged Access Management solution, it's possible to prevent a malware threat. Access to the system can be avoided by removing excess privileges.
• The PAM solution Creates an environment easy to audit: It establishes a thorough security and risk management approach through detailed activity records. It enables the users to oversee and identify unusual behavior.
• Improves operational efficiency: by limiting access privileges to only the necessary processes for tasks. It reduces the probability of conflicts between applications or systems and decreases the potential for downtime.

The more comprehensive your strategies and implementations are for privilege security, the more effectively you can respond to threats from both inside and outside your organization. In addition to fulfilling regulatory requirements. Let us now have a look at some of the key PAM best practices:

• Establish an elaborate privilege access management policy: Define how privileges are assigned and revoked, inventory, and enforce security best practices.
• Discover and manage all privileged accounts: Identify all types of privileged accounts, including user, service, and application accounts, across various platforms and ensure they're under management.
• Enforce least privilege access: Remove unnecessary privileges, limit access to what's necessary for tasks, and apply just-in-time (JIT) access to minimize potential abuse.
• Remove admin rights on endpoints: Default to standard user privileges, allowing specific elevated privileges for tasks as needed.
• Implement privilege separation and duty separation: Differentiate between account functions and ensure privileges are specific to required tasks, minimizing overlap.
• Segment networks and systems: Create different trust levels and apply more stringent security controls where needed to contain breaches.
• Enforce robust password security: Centralize credential management, enforce strong password policies, regularly rotate passwords, and eliminate password sharing.
• Secure infrastructure access: Apply PAM principles to manage access to infrastructure, using privileged access workstations and limiting access scope.
• Monitor and audit privileged activity: Use privileged session management to record and control sessions, ensuring compliance and detecting suspicious activities.
• Implement context-based dynamic access: Adjust access based on real-time risk assessments, applying zero trust principles to limit exposure.
• Automate privileged task workflows: Securely manage automated tasks that require elevated access, ensuring smooth integration into IT environments.
• Utilize privileged threat analytics: Monitor privileged user behavior and access, alerting on deviations that pose a risk, and making data-driven security decisions.

• Achieve Full Visibility and Enforce Control: Ensure your PAM strategy provides complete transparency over all privileged accounts, both human and non-human, enabling you to:
  • Identify and eliminate unnecessary default admin accounts while strictly applying the least privilege principle.
  • Continuously govern and control privileged access to prevent unauthorized privilege escalation, thereby safeguarding your organization’s cybersecurity posture.
• Monitor, Audit, and Automate for Efficiency and Compliance: Implement policies to monitor and audit privileged actions, distinguishing legitimate behavior from policy violations.
  • Leverage automation within your PAM solutions to efficiently manage millions of privileged accounts and assets.
  • Reduce manual administrative efforts and enhance security and compliance, tailored to meet your specific regulatory needs.
• Utilize Privileged Account and Session Management (PASM): Centralize privileged password and session management to protect all privileged accounts with a secure password safe and monitor sessions for elevated security
• Apply Privilege Elevation and Delegation Management (PEDM): Manage granular privilege elevation on endpoints, servers, and infrastructure, including application control and implementation of least privileges.

Identity and access management (IAM) comprises of a set of rules that identifies and controls the Who, When, Where, and How the user access to resources will be provided. These consist of Single Sign On (SSO), Multifactor Authentication (MFA), Password Management, and User Lifecycle Management.

The key difference between PAM vs IAM is that Privileged Access Management (PAM) involves specific processes and technologies dedicated to securing privileged accounts. PAM, as a critical subset of Identity and Access Management (IAM), is designed to regulate and monitor the actions of privileged users, who have access levels that surpass those of regular users once they are logged into the system.

When discussing the difference between PAM and PIM, it is important to note that Privileged Identity Management (PIM) is also a key component. It focuses on managing, monitoring, controlling, and securing the access rights of privileged users to critical resources within an organization.

Businesses can use Privileged Access Management to enhance their security by controlling, monitoring, and managing the access rights of users with elevated privileges. PAM helps reduce the risk of data breaches by ensuring that only authorized users have access to sensitive systems and information.

A Privileged Access Management (PAM) tool is a cybersecurity solution that helps organizations secure, control, manage, and monitor privileged access to critical digital assets. These tools are essential for enforcing security policies, providing secure authentication, and offering detailed logging information of all privileged sessions, thereby preventing unauthorized access and misuse of privileged credentials.

Privileged Access Management is needed to protect organizations from the risks associated with privileged accounts, such as insider threats, external attacks, and data breaches. By managing and monitoring privileged access, PAM solutions help ensure that only authorized personnel can access sensitive systems and data, this reduces the overall attack surface and enhances overall security.

The reason for granting high-privilege access to a user is to enable them to perform specific tasks that require elevated permissions, such as system maintenance, network configuration, or managing the security settings. High-privilege access is typically granted to the IT administrators and other roles that manage and secure the IT infrastructure.

Privileged Access Management tools should be administered by trusted professionals within an organization. These administrators are responsible for configuring the PAM solution, setting access policies, monitoring privileged user activities, and ensuring that the system remains secure against unauthorized access and potential security threats.

Privileged Access Management (PAM) in cybersecurity refers to the technology for managing control over the elevated privileged access and permissions that users have within an organization's IT environment. It is designed to prevent breaches and insider threats by managing and monitoring privileged accounts and their access rights.