How To Protect Privileged Accounts From Insider Threats

While many organizations focus on mitigating external cyber threats, insider threats can target privileged accounts with elevated access to sensitive data or systems. Based on Cybersecurity Insiders’ Insider Threat Report, 83% of organizations suffered at least one insider attack in 2024. Unlike how organizations may respond to external cyber threats, insider threats require a more specific approach that ensures employees have only the access necessary for their role while preventing misuse of sensitive data. The best way to protect privileged accounts from insider threats is with a Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution.

Continue reading to learn why malicious insider threats target privileged accounts, how PAM solutions protect privileged accounts from insider threats and common mistakes to avoid when protecting privileged accounts.

Why insider threats target privileged accounts

Although insider threats can be unintentional due to negligence, insiders with malicious intent aim to sabotage their organization and use the sensitive information they steal for their own benefit. Malicious insider threats target privileged accounts due to their high-level access to critical systems and data, ability to bypass security controls, greater rewards and escalation of privileges.

High-level access to critical systems and data

Privileged accounts provide elevated access to sensitive information and critical systems, such as financial records and infrastructure, making them key targets for insider threats. Because organizations rely on privileged accounts with powerful access, malicious insiders seek out these accounts to manipulate, steal or sabotage important business information for personal gain or revenge. Misuse of privileged accounts can result in financial and operational damage far more serious than that of regular accounts. This happened to Disney in 2024 when a former menu production manager manipulated proprietary menu creation information and replaced all fonts to make legitimate menus unreadable. In addition, the former menu production manager added false allergen information, saying that certain menu items were safe for people with specific allergies when they could have been life-threatening. As a result, the menu creator system reverted to manual processes for several weeks, slowing down production and losing customer trust.

Ability to bypass security controls

Unlike external cybercriminals attempting to access privileged accounts, malicious insiders already operate within an organization’s network, making it easier to bypass security controls. Since privileged accounts are granted access to highly sensitive data, they are more desirable to insiders who wish to bypass firewalls and access controls, disable security monitoring and elevate privileges to create backdoors. Without proper monitoring and security controls, privileged users might go undetected while accessing restricted systems, moving laterally across an organization’s network or stealing sensitive data. Organizations must enforce strict access controls and monitor privileged account activity in real time to reduce the impact of insider threats.

Greater impact and rewards

For malicious insiders, privileged accounts are highly valuable because they can be used to access vast amounts of sensitive information. Compromising a privileged account leads to greater rewards than compromising a regular account, including financial gain or sabotage. Since privileged accounts hold significantly more sensitive information, the impact of misuse is far more serious than that of a regular account. Insiders who exploit privileged accounts can manipulate financial records or disrupt system operations for money or personal gain. Implementing strict access controls and monitoring privileged accounts can mitigate the risks of insider threats targeting these accounts.

Escalation of privileges

Insiders with access to privileged accounts can escalate their privileges, granting themselves more authority than they need. With escalated privileges, an insider can move within an organization’s network, remaining undetected as they access sensitive information, change security settings or even impersonate other privileged users. Compromising privileged accounts can help insiders bypass security measures, move further into systems and execute damaging attacks, such as deploying ransomware or sabotaging critical operations. Privilege escalation is one of the most dangerous tactics used by insiders to compromise entire systems, which is why organizations must closely monitor privileged account activity.

How a PAM solution protects privileged accounts from insider threats

Organizations can protect privileged accounts from insider threats by investing in a PAM solution that enforces least-privilege access, prevents unauthorized access, limits privilege escalation, ensures accountability and reduces human error.

Enforces Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) protects privileged accounts from insider threats and additional cyber threats. With MFA enabled, authorized users have to provide both the username and password for an account in addition to an extra form of verification. MFA protects privileged accounts with this additional layer of security, ensuring only authorized users who possess the correct MFA method can access them.

🔒 KeeperPAM enforces the use of MFA to access the vault, initiate sessions and applications that don’t natively support MFA.

Reduces privileges and revokes admin rights

The customer is responsible for determining who should be assigned to which roles with a PAM solution. PAM limits access to critical resources, ensuring that only users with the appropriate role can access specific systems and data. Additionally, PAM elevates users access during privileged sessions, helping to control access in real time. Furthermore, PAM can elevate permissions for specific actions through Privileged Endpoint Management (PEDM) on the endpoint, further enhancing security. Organizations minimize the potential damage an insider could cause by reducing privileges and revoking unnecessary access. If an insider’s account is compromised or misused, limiting administrative rights ensures the damage is contained to a narrower scope of operations.

🔒 With KeeperPAM, authorized users are granted the exact permissions they need to do their job by enforcing the Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP). Access is automatically revoked when it’s no longer necessary, minimizing the potential for misuse and the overall risk of insider threats.

Enables you to set up a secure gateway to control remote system access

A secure gateway is a controlled access point acting as a barrier between users and sensitive systems. Every time a user attempts to access a remote system, they must go through the secure gateway, which ensures only authorized users can gain access. This helps protect against insider threats by strictly regulating and tracking remote access to sensitive data. 

🔒 A Keeper Gateway can be set up as the choke point for all remote system access and service accounts, removing all secondary paths and ensuring that every access request is verified, monitored and audited.

Provides on-demand access without sharing admin credentials

On-demand access allows authorized users to access critical systems, databases, servers or workloads only when needed, without the need to share administrative credentials. This approach ensures that access is granted through a specific, temporary account, which eliminates the risk of exposing sensitive login information. By keeping administrative credentials hidden, it prevents potential insider threats from misusing or gaining unauthorized access to critical systems, helping to maintain the integrity and security of privileged accounts.

🔒  KeeperPAM provides on-demand access by granting temporary credentials for specific tasks without exposing sensitive administrative credentials. Once the task is completed, access is automatically revoked, ensuring minimal exposure to privileged data and reducing the risk of unauthorized access or misuse.

Automates offboarding for vault lockdown upon employee termination

System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM) is a protocol which automates the exchange of user identity information between identity systems and applications. PAM integrates SCIM to automatically sync user access, so when an employee leaves an organization, the system knows to revoke their access and automatically lock down any vaults holding sensitive credentials. Accounts that have been accessed by the terminated employee can be automatically rotated to ensure that potentially leaked credentials are no longer valid.

🔒 With KeeperPAM, SCIM can be set up to automatically revoke terminated employees’ access and lock down sensitive vaults. This ensures that no former employee can access privileged information.

Enables SIEM integration to monitor privileged account access

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) is a system that collects and analyzes data about network activity and system events to spot suspicious behavior. The combination of SIEM and PAM detects potential insider threats by sending alerts in real time if suspicious activity occurs with admin access.

🔒 KeeperPAM integrates with SIEM to monitor privileged account access and identify unusual behavior that could indicate an insider threat. If anything suspicious happens, it triggers an alert so organizations can respond quickly. Keeper’s Risk Management Dashboard monitors configuration and security events in real time.

Auto-rotates credentials upon expiration of shared access

Automatically changing credentials used for privileged accounts as soon as the shared access period expires minimizes the risk of insider misuse. By automating access controls, password rotation and access approvals, PAM reduces human error that can lead to non-malicious insider threats. PAM also automatically changes and secures passwords for privileged accounts, reducing the risk of unauthorized access and accidental credential exposure.

🔒 With KeeperPAM, privileged credentials can be configured to automatically rotate when shared access expires. This ensures that the old password is no longer valid once a task is finished, reducing the risk of insider misuse.

Monitors remote system usage with session recordings

All actions performed with privileged accounts are traceable to specific individuals through session recordings creating a clear audit trail to hold users accountable for misuse. With session recording and monitoring features, organizations can keep a detailed record of all privileged activity, aiding internal investigations in the event of suspicious behavior.

🔒 KeeperPAM is able to record user activity through session recording and keystroke logging, capturing actions during remote connections and on protected websites for review, compliance and security purposes. This ensures proper interactions and helps reduce insider threats.

Limits internal web application access through RBI

Privileged accounts can be protected through PAM by limiting access to internal web applications through Remote Browser Isolation (RBI), which runs web sessions in a separate, virtual environment from your device. It prevents direct access to internal systems, which also reduces the risk of insider threats by isolating web browsing activities.

🔒 With KeeperPAM, organizations can use RBI to run web sessions in a secure environment, preventing potential insider threats from affecting the main network or sensitive systems. KeeperPAM limits internal web application access and keeps potential threats contained in a virtual environment, protecting systems from insider misuse.

Common mistakes to avoid when protecting privileged accounts

Organizations with strong security measures in place can still make mistakes, leaving privileged accounts susceptible to insider threats. Here are some of the most common mistakes organizations make when protecting their privileged accounts:

• Neglecting user access reviews: Organizations fail to regularly review which users have access to what resources, leading to unnecessary or outdated permissions. Employees with new roles or those who have left an organization may still have access to sensitive systems, which is why regularly auditing access ensures the right people have appropriate privileged access.
• Inconsistent implementation of policies: If one team follows strict privileged access controls while another team is more relaxed, insiders can exploit these security gaps to gain unauthorized access to privileged accounts. Having strong security policies is ineffective unless they are applied consistently across an entire organization.
• Ignoring third-party access: Many companies focus on their employees’ privileged access but fail to closely monitor third-party access, including contractors, vendors or freelancers. Since external users may not follow the same security protocols as insiders, organizations must monitor and control third-party privileged access just as closely as they do for internal users.
• Lack of an incident response plan: Organizations must prepare for insider attacks before they happen, which means creating an incident response plan. Without a plan in place, security teams may struggle to detect, investigate and minimize the damage caused by compromised privileged accounts.

Protect your organization’s privileged accounts with KeeperPAM^®

Secure your organization’s privileged accounts by using KeeperPAM – a cloud-native, zero-trust and zero-knowledge platform. With KeeperPAM, your organization can record and monitor all privileged account activity, store audit logs and receive real-time security alerts if suspicious activity occurs.

Request a demo of KeeperPAM today to protect your organization’s privileged accounts and sensitive data.