Seven Best Practices for Privileged Access Management

Privileged Access Management (PAM) protects an organization’s most critical systems and accounts from unauthorized access, making it important to have a good PAM strategy in place. Some of the best practices to develop a good PAM strategy include implementing least privilege access, monitoring privileged accounts, adopting password security best practices, requiring multi-factor authentication and auditing privileges regularly. 

Continue reading to learn more about privileged access management and the seven best practices your organization should implement to protect privileged data.

The importance of privileged access management

Privileged Access Management is the process of managing and securing accounts that have privileged access to sensitive systems, databases, applications and network infrastructure. PAM plays an important role in an organization’s ability to protect sensitive information and prevent security breaches. With PAM, organizations have full visibility into their entire data infrastructure, which enhances security and helps adhere to regulatory compliances such as GDPR, HIPAA and SOX. 

7 PAM best practices organizations need to follow

To develop a good PAM strategy, organizations need to be following these seven best practices.

1. Implement least privilege access

Implementing least privilege access reduces an organization’s attack surface, minimizes insider threats and prevents lateral movement. The principle of least privilege is a cybersecurity concept that gives users just enough network access to information and systems to do their jobs and no more. By limiting access to privileged accounts and what those privileged accounts can do, organizations can reduce the potential entry points of unauthorized access and mitigate the effects of a data breach. To implement least privilege access, organizations need to invest in a PAM solution. A PAM solution is a centralized tool that allows organizations to secure and manage privileged accounts.

2. Monitor the activity of privileged accounts

Organizations need to identify all of the privileged accounts within their network and properly manage them. When identifying privileged accounts, they should remove any unnecessary accounts to limit the number of privileged accounts. Organizations must verify that privileged accounts have the right levels of access they need. Then, they need to check who is accessing these privileged accounts and how they are being used. This will help identify any abnormal behavior from unauthorized users and immediately remove those users from the account. PAM solutions often come with privileged account management and privileged session monitoring features that enable organizations to manage the permissions of privileged users and monitor their activity.

3. Enforce just-in-time access

Just-in-time access is where human and non-human user privileges are increased in real time and session length is limited for a predetermined time. This ensures that users and machines have privileged access to resources only when they need it. It limits the amount of access to privileged resources for a certain time and ensures users do not have privileged access longer than they need. This helps prevent the misuse of privileged access by insider threats and prevents lateral movement within the network by unauthorized users. With a PAM solution, organizations can enforce just-in-time access to privileged accounts for temporary access.

4. Segment networks

Network segmentation divides and isolates parts of an organization’s network to control access to sensitive information. These segments are separated based on the type of sensitive resources and the users who need to access them. Organizations can establish these network segments by using a PAM solution to monitor and manage access to them. This limits access to the entire network and only allows users to access the resources they need to do their jobs. Network segmentation prevents cybercriminals from moving laterally across an entire network and limits unauthorized users only to the network they have accessed. To protect the network even further, organizations can create micro segments that isolate parts of the network within segments.

5. Adopt password security best practices

To protect privileged accounts, organizations need to adopt password security best practices. Cybercriminals will try to use password-related attacks such as brute force to crack the login credentials of privileged accounts. Organizations need to secure privileged accounts with strong and unique passwords. Strong passwords that are both long and complex make it difficult for cybercriminals to guess or crack them. Each privileged account should have a unique password to prevent multiple accounts from getting compromised through credential stuffing.

Organizations also need to ensure that their passwords are properly stored in a password manager. A password manager is a tool that securely stores and manages passwords in a digitally encrypted vault. The password vault is protected with multiple layers of encryption and can only be accessed using a master password. It helps prevent cybercriminals from using malware to steal passwords stored in unencrypted locations. A password manager also helps identify weak passwords and prompts users to strengthen them. Some password managers also allow employees to securely share passwords using methods such as One-Time Share. PAM solutions often come with password management capabilities that allow organizations to understand their employees’ password practices and enforce password security best practices. 

6. Require MFA

Requiring Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for privileged accounts is necessary to provide additional layers of security, ensuring only authorized users have access. MFA is a security protocol that requires users to provide more than one form of authentication to gain access to a service, application or database. MFA requires different types of authentication factors for users to verify their identity. These different types of authentication factors are something you know, something you have, something you are and somewhere you are. For example, a user must provide something they know such as a password or PIN, along with something they have such as a security key or Time-Based One-Time Password (TOTP) from an authenticator app. PAM solutions with password management capabilities allow organizations to enforce the use of MFA for privileged accounts.

7. Regularly audit privileges

Once a PAM strategy has been established, organizations need to regularly audit privileges to prevent privilege creep. Privilege creep is when individuals gradually accumulate network access beyond what they need to do their jobs. This often happens due to a lack of a centralized PAM system. By regularly auditing privileges with a PAM solution, organizations can check to see if users have the necessary privileges they need to do their jobs and remove any privileges they don’t need anymore. Regularly auditing privileges also help organizations determine which accounts need to be deleted because they are no longer in use. 

Use Keeper® to manage your privileged accounts

The best way to secure and manage privileged accounts is with a PAM solution. With a PAM solution, organizations can manage who can access privileged accounts, what they can access and the security of privileged accounts. KeeperPAM™ is a zero-trust and zero-knowledge privileged access manager that gives organizations complete visibility, security and control over every privileged user within their network. It combines Keeper Enterprise Password Manager (EPM), Keeper Secrets Manager® (KSM) and Keeper Connection Manager® (KCM) to secure an organization’s passwords, credentials, secrets, privileges and connections – all in one tool.