Privileged Access Management – Everything You Need to Know About

The management of privileged accounts (PAM) is an increasingly important issue within companies. But why is it so important?

Privileged Access Management: DEFINITION

Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions are solutions aimed at managing and protecting user accounts with high privileges (internal administrators and service providers) and managing administrative access to IS equipment.

Privileged access thus makes it possible to modify the configurations of a system, create and delete user accounts, or access certain sensitive data. Privileged access must be controlled and supervised, because of its importance.

What is the difference between user accounts and privileged accounts?

There are two main categories of IT accounts:

1. User accounts –  A user account typically represents a human identity (such as an Active Directory user account) and has an associated password to protect the information and prevent unauthorized access by anyone else. There is usually only one account password per user that must be memorized by one person.
2. Privileged accounts: Privileged accounts provide administrative or specialized levels of access to business systems and sensitive data, based on higher levels of permissions. A privileged account can be associated with a human or a non-human IT system.

Organizations often have two to three times as many privileged accounts as employees. In most organizations, IT staff have one account with standard-level permissions and another account for operations that require elevated permissions.

WHAT USE?
A Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution is very important to protect your organization from suspicious, accidental, or intentional use.

It is essential to prevent privileged users from bypassing security procedures, making unauthorized changes to a system, or accessing confidential data. The PAM solution is then a good solution for monitoring privileged access.
She allows to:

• Grant privileges to users only on the systems to which they have the right to access. It is also possible to grant access permissions only when necessary and to revoke them at any time. This helps to guard against attacks from the inside. (a malicious employee, or before leaving the company for example).
• Protect against cyberattacks. Privileged users may tend to use the same password for multiple accounts, while they are more susceptible to cyberattacks. An access privilege management system can reduce the need for administrators to remember many passwords and prevent privileged users from creating system passwords.
• To gain practicality, by easily managing access to systems. By logging in faster without having to remember many passwords. It also saves time for the “super-administrator” who can easily manage user access privileges from a single space.

HOW DOES Privileged Access Management (PAM) WORK?

1. A Privileged Access Management (PAM) administrator uses the PAM Portal to define privileged account access methods. Privileged account credentials (such as their passwords) are stored in a special, highly secure password storage solution.
2. The PAM administrator can then choose who can assume access to these privileged accounts and under what conditions.
3. The administrator can also monitor user activities on the Privileged Access Management (PAM) portal.
   For the user, the connection is made through the access privilege management system. Often the user does not have access to the actual passwords for logging into applications, access is provided to him through the access privilege management system.
4. In addition, the access privilege management system ensures that passwords are changed regularly. Often automatically, either at regular intervals or after each use.
   PAM solutions generally have:

• An access manager governs the access of privileged accounts.
• A password vault, which stores passwords securely.
• A session manager, logs all activity in a privileged session for auditing or analysis.

ELIMINATES A SECURITY THREAT VECTOR

Give manufacturers privileged access to critical business assets without the need for VPNs.

TEAM MANAGEMENT AND PERMISSIONS

Meet internal and external regulatory requirements with detailed forensic testing of sessions for subsequent audits.

A PRIVILEGED ACCESS SOLUTION THAT ALL YOUR USERS WILL LOVE

It adopts a system that allows users to get their work done faster and easier.

THE OPINION OF Cyber Snowden:
The risks related to the very important power of the administrators must imperatively be considered in the security policy of an organization.

In addition to the legal and contractual aspects aimed at empowering the administrator, Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions are now recommended tools for organizations, especially those with several administrators.