Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions are designed to protect organizations from a variety of threats that target privileged accounts, credentials and access. These solutions help to secure, manage and monitor access to critical systems and sensitive data. For many organizations, implementing a PAM solution is the best way to protect against common cyberthreats and security issues including insider threats, credential theft, social engineering attacks, secrets sprawl and compliance or audit failures.
However, while many executives and business stakeholders understand the importance of cybersecurity, they might not fully grasp the nuances and benefits of PAM. That could make it difficult for IT teams to find the buy-in necessary to deploy a PAM solution.
Many non-technical leaders simply need help understanding the basics of PAM — and why their organization will benefit from having a solution. Basic concepts are important to explain, such as:
In this blog, we’ll provide suggestions for making a business case for PAM to a non-technical audience such as senior executives or other stakeholders outside of the IT department.
A privileged account is a user account that has elevated permissions or access rights within an organization’s systems, applications or network infrastructure. These accounts have the authority to perform administrative or sensitive tasks that can impact the security, integrity or availability of critical systems and data.
Privileged accounts pose significant security risks due to their elevated access rights. When misused, either accidentally or maliciously, it can lead to severe consequences, such as data breaches, system downtime or regulatory non-compliance.
When making a business case for a PAM deployment, use realistic scenarios to help articulate the threat that a compromised privileged account would pose. For example, present a scenario where a malicious actor, either an external hacker or a disgruntled insider, gains access to a domain administrator account.
Now that you have clearly articulated the potential risks of unauthorized access to privileged accounts, it’s important to describe the techniques used to protect them.
Zero trust is a security framework that shifts the traditional security model from implicit trust towards a “never trust, always verify” approach. The main concept behind zero trust is that organizations should not automatically trust any entity, whether it’s inside or outside their network perimeter.
Least privileged access, also known as the Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP), dictates that users, applications, and systems should only be granted the minimum level of access or permissions necessary to perform their assigned tasks or functions. By limiting access rights and permissions, the potential damage from security breaches is minimized.
When making a business case for a PAM deployment, it may be beneficial to reframe these rather technical concepts by focusing on how implementing them could benefit the organization. For example:
The final step in crafting the business case for a PAM deployment involves articulating how PAM can be used to implement a zero-trust security framework and enforce the principle of least privilege.
PAM establishes a zero-trust framework by prompting continuous verification for all of an organization’s passwords, secrets and privileged connections.
In turn, the zero-trust model gives IT administrators — and the enterprise — full visibility into the activity of all users on all systems and devices. That helps ensure compliance with industry and regulatory mandates and helps prevent cyberattacks caused by compromised user credentials.
PAM eliminates unnecessary privileges that could be exploited by malicious insiders or bad actors outside the organization. By automating the configuration of privileged accounts, as well as providing continuous monitoring, management and reporting on their activity, PAM ensures only authorized users have access to privileged accounts at any given time.
PAM solutions establish a zero-trust framework and enforce least privileged access, limiting the likelihood of a data breach and minimizing its impact, if one were to occur. However, for the many advantages PAM provides to enterprise security, many legacy solutions are cost-prohibitive.
But PAM doesn’t have to overrun the IT budget, engage professional services or be difficult in order to deliver value. Keeper Security delivers next-gen PAM — a simple PAM solution through an agentless, zero-trust cloud architecture, meaning organizations can quickly deploy privileged access capabilities.
Interested in how KeeperPAM™ would work for your organization? Talk to one of our cybersecurity experts today.
You May Also Like
There are many cybersecurity threats privileged accounts face including phishing, insider threats, malware and brute force attacks. When privileged accounts aren’t managed or secured properly, all of an organization’s sensitive data is vulnerable to being successfully...
Choose Language