How Can I Use PAM to Satisfy Cyber Insurance Requirements?

Privileged Access Management (PAM) enables organizations to address core controls needed to qualify for many cyber insurance policies. It’s important for organizations to be insured and mitigate the potential impact of a breach, and PAM is a critical part of any risk management strategy.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at how organizations can satisfy common cyber insurance requirements with PAM, and the security benefits doing so offers.

What Is Cyber Insurance and Why Do Organizations Apply for It?

Cyber insurance is a type of insurance that protects businesses against the disruption and costs of a cyber attack. It helps organizations manage their risk and, in the event of a breach, defray the cost of incident response.

Cyber attacks result in extensive costs and damage, from operational downtime and data loss to non-compliance, employer liability and lost revenue. According to IBM and the Ponemon Institute’s Cost of a Data Breach 2022 Report, organizations can expect to pay an average of $4.35 million in the aftermath of a breach. The threat is pervasive, with the average business experiencing 42 cyber attacks annually according to Keeper Security’s 2022 US Cybersecurity Census.

Breaches disrupt organizations regardless of their size, but they can be especially devastating for Small-to-Midsized Businesses (SMBs). The National Cybersecurity Alliance found that 60% of SMBs go bankrupt within six months of a breach. An additional 12% are out of business within two years.   

What Does Cyber Insurance Cover?

Protection varies by policy, and organizations should check with their insurer to see specific coverage. However, cyber insurance generally covers the following areas.

• Data recovery and restoration costs
  • Costs related to restoring lost or damaged data, including restoration services, software and hardware
• Notification and credit monitoring
  • Costs related to notifying employees, customers, partners and other affected parties of a breach, as well as providing credit monitoring services to affected individuals
• Legal and regulatory fees
  • Costs related to legal fees, fines and penalties, as well as compliance with regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA
• Business disruption
  • Costs related to lost revenue or other disruptions from a cyber attack, such as hiring a public relations firm to help with response to the breach

What Are the Requirements for Cyber Insurance?

Security controls will also vary by provider and specific policy. In general, organizations should look to have the following security controls to qualify for cyber insurance.

• Implementation of robust backup systems
• Security awareness program for employees
• Anti-phishing email security deployed across the organization 
• Incident response training for executives, IT and information security personnel
• Endpoint protection against malware
• Network visibility and security

In the controls listed above, PAM would fall under network visibility and security.

What is PAM?

PAM is a set of security capabilities, often delivered in a single solution, that organizations use to secure, control and monitor access to privileged accounts. 

Privileged accounts are valuable in an organization because they grant far-reaching access to sensitive systems and data. And since there are so many privileged accounts, credentials are unmanageable unless organizations have a solution including PAM functionality — which ensures only the right people have access to data — and only to the data they need to do their jobs at a given time.

Since 82% of data breaches involve compromised credentials, of which privileged credentials provide the widest purview of access, it’s with good reason that cyber insurance carriers are looking for PAM capabilities in an organization’s security stack. 

How does PAM meet the network visibility and security requirements of cyber insurance?

PAM solutions address network visibility and security controls by enabling security, visibility and control over the most sensitive and vulnerable credentials in an organization.

• Authentication: Many PAM solutions include a component of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) that verifies the identity of a user. MFA enhances protection and prevents unauthorized attackers from accessing your networks and requesting access to accounts — including accounts used by super admins or privileged users with widespread access. 
• Access Control: PAM solutions enforce the principle of least privilege access, ensuring that human and machine users have the least necessary access to systems and data by providing access to only those accounts they need to carry out their role. Access controls also provide granular levels of control and enforcement for privileged accounts.
• Privileged Account and Session Management (PASM): PASM capabilities enable organizations to manage and configure their privileged accounts throughout their IT environment, including through automated provisioning and de-provisioning of accounts.  For all privileged accounts, the PAM solution records activity during sessions and alerts administrators to suspicious activity.
• Audit and Compliance: With PASM functionality also comes a streamlined method to record account and session activity, including through session and event logs. This helps to support audits and reports for compliance and regulatory purposes.

How else can PAM benefit my organization?

PAM solutions help organizations address network security and visibility insurance controls. In turn, having these solutions in place may qualify organizations for cyber insurance, lower their premiums or entitle them to more expansive coverage. 

Without PAM, organizations may have higher premiums, have their policy canceled at renewal or receive limited coverage. In 2022, for example, when many insurers tightened controls and limited coverage in response to an unprecedented wave of cyber attacks the previous year, renewals were canceled because some organizations lacked sufficient controls under the new guidelines.

PAM solutions shouldn’t be considered just because they’re needed for insurance. They offer a preventative safeguard with or without insurance, limiting the incidence and impact of breaches.

PAM solutions are a cornerstone of any strategy for enterprise security. As every organization needs to secure passwords, credentials, secrets and connections, PAM solutions provide one platform to secure privileged accounts throughout the IT environment. A few solutions, such as KeeperPAM™, deliver enterprise password management in the same platform, leveraging one solution to protect against all credential-related cyber attacks.

Next-Gen PAM: Addresses Insurance Controls Without the Bloat

While PAM can assist organizations with addressing cyber insurance requirements, traditional solutions are often cost-prohibitive, difficult to deploy and contain unused features.

A Keeper Security report on Privileged Access Management Complexity found that major components of traditional PAM solutions are not being used, making the business case hard to rationalize with limited IT resources. In the survey of more than 400 senior IT leaders, 87% of respondents say they would prefer a “pared down” form of PAM that is easier to deploy and use.

Next-Gen PAM solutions deliver the core functionality of traditional PAM — in the cloud and at a fraction of the cost — with limited IT overhead and in less time.

Interested in learning more about how next-gen PAM can help your organization quickly address common requirements for cyber insurance? Connect with one of our cybersecurity experts today.