Privileged Access Management Use Cases

There are several use cases for a Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution, including secure remote access, credential management and least-privilege access enforcement. PAM helps organizations manage the access of authorized accounts to highly sensitive data, including IT departments, HR or staff who handle payroll systems.

Continue reading to learn more about the different use cases for PAM and why you should choose KeeperPAM® as your PAM solution.

1. Secure remote access

PAM provides your IT administrators with secure access controls and session monitoring, ensuring that your critical systems and sensitive data can be managed at all times. This helps protect your most important information and ensures all user actions are logged and tracked. PAM allows you to access this information remotely, benefiting your organization whether you’re in the office or spread out around the world. 

Imagine your organization needs to provide remote access for your IT department to troubleshoot an issue without sacrificing security. When you have a PAM solution, you ensure that your IT department has the necessary privileged access to do their jobs. While they work, their remote sessions are monitored to ensure that sensitive information is being accessed only by authorized users and that those authorized users aren’t misusing their privileges.

2. Credential management

A PAM solution protects your organization’s privileged accounts by storing their passwords in secure digital vaults. If your organization’s IT department needs to access a database to fix an issue but a team member leaves, you might worry about passwords to sensitive data being compromised. However, with a PAM solution, your organization’s passwords will be automatically rotated and protected in a vault accessible only to authorized users. Your organization can reduce the risk of credential theft and ensure compliance with security policies by using PAM because it simplifies password rotation and management processes.

You can also use PAM to automatically rotate employee passwords and store privileged account passwords in a secure location. Automated password rotation is essential for organizations, especially for privileged accounts, because it enhances your security and reduces the risk of an unauthorized user gaining access to sensitive data. By having your privileged accounts change their passwords every 30, 60 or 90 days, your organization’s sensitive information is less likely to become compromised. 

3. Least privilege enforcement

Most PAM solutions reinforce the principle of least privilege access by giving authorized users only the access they need to complete their jobs. Imagine giving someone on your sales team the same access to sensitive information as someone working in HR; not only would this not make sense based on each employee’s role, but it would also create privacy concerns and a security issue if a data breach occurred. Maintaining least-privilege access for privileged accounts significantly reduces your attack surface, which is every possible entry point where cybercriminals could access your system and steal data. By only granting access to employees who need privileged access, you minimize the impact of a cybercriminal accessing one employee’s account, as each employee has access only to what they need. 

You can also enforce Just-In-Time (JIT) access, which gives employees and devices access to privileged information only for a specific amount of time and for a certain task. Instead of giving continuous access to employees who don’t need it, setting a limit on how long someone can access specific sensitive information can also help prevent cybercriminals from gaining unauthorized access.

4. User lifecycle management

With a PAM solution, you can automate user lifecycles, allowing you to manage your employees’ accounts for the duration of their time at your organization. One way to use PAM is during the onboarding of new employees, as a PAM solution will ensure each new employee has appropriate access to specific resources and data based on their role. If an employee gets promoted and needs more access to sensitive information, your PAM solution can help update their access. You can monitor your employees’ account activity to ensure they comply with security policies and review their activity if their account is compromised to determine what data an unauthorized user may have stolen. 

PAM can also be used when offboarding employees by making it simple to revoke access and protect sensitive information from remaining with someone who no longer works at your company. Using PAM simplifies the onboarding and offboarding processes for all employees, especially those who need access to sensitive information.

5. Incident response

You can access detailed logs of your organization’s privileged account activities with a PAM solution. This helps incident response teams identify when someone has gained unauthorized access to sensitive data and allows them to respond effectively. 

If your organization doesn’t already have an incident response plan in place, you should develop one to help identify when a cyber attack occurs, how to respond to it and how to prevent your organization from becoming a victim in the future. PAM solutions help with incident response because your incident response team can quickly review activity logs to determine who took which actions, understand how an account was compromised and immediately revoke access to unauthorized users. Using a PAM solution reduces the potential damage of a data breach or compromised privileged account because your incident response team can act quickly and effectively when all user activity is securely logged.

6. Compliance audits

PAM can provide your organization with comprehensive audit trails, showing privileged account activity and ensuring employees comply with security standards. For example, let’s say your organization must follow the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), which mandates checks and balances to provide accuracy and transparency when disclosing information and protecting the public from accounting errors. Using a PAM solution can help your organization conduct compliance audits to ensure that only privileged accounts are accessing sensitive information. 

If your organization does not track all privileged activities through audits, you will be unable to determine what happened to whose account if a data breach occurrs. For organizations in the healthcare industry, compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is necessary to protect patients’ privacy and sensitive medical information. With the number of major organizations that have suffered malware attacks in 2024, including Change Healthcare and Ascension Hospital, having a PAM solution in place allows your organization to meet HIPAA requirements and protect privileged information from unauthorized users.

Choose KeeperPAM as your PAM solution

Although many PAM solutions are available to your organization, you should choose KeeperPAM as your PAM solution because it secures employee login credentials, secrets and privileged accounts to minimize the risk of cyber attacks. KeeperPAM provides your organization with a convenient way to manage privileged accounts, secrets, privileged account credentials and more in a unified, zero-trust platform.

Request a demo of KeeperPAM to experience how a modern PAM solution can enhance the security and privacy of your most sensitive accounts.