What is privileged account discovery?

Privileged account discovery is the process of identifying all privileged accounts across an organisation's IT environment, including servers, applications, endpoints and databases. Privileged accounts typically have elevated permissions that grant access to sensitive data and critical systems, making them high-value targets for cybercriminals.

The importance of privileged account discovery

Privileged account discovery is a foundational step in strengthening an organisation's security posture. Privileged accounts can be created during software installations, by IT administrators, for third-party vendors or even by former employees. If these privileged accounts are left unmanaged or orphaned, they introduce serious security risks. Many organisations underestimate the number of privileged accounts within their networks, especially in complex or hybrid IT environments.

By performing privileged account discovery, organisations can:

Reduce security risks: Identifying and securing orphaned or unmanaged accounts helps prevent unauthorised access.
Meet compliance standards: Regulatory frameworks like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) require strict access controls and detailed auditing of privileged accounts.
Gain full visibility: Having a clear inventory of all privileged accounts helps IT and security teams detect suspicious activity.
Implement Privileged Access Management (PAM): Privileged account discovery is a prerequisite to implementing a PAM solution, as organisations can't protect privileged accounts effectively if they don't know where they exist.

How privileged account discovery works

Privileged account discovery uses automated tools to scan and detect privileged accounts across on-premises, hybrid and cloud environments. Discovery tools scan local environments, detect orphaned credentials, determine relationships between accounts and identify cloud-based privileged accounts on platforms like Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Once accounts are discovered, organisations can assess them and decide if access is still required. With full visibility, organisations can enforce least-privilege access, automatically rotate privileged credentials and monitor privileged sessions.

How privileged account discovery is a key part of PAM

Privileged account discovery is not a one-time task; it's a continuous process and a critical component of an effective PAM strategy. When integrated into the broader PAM framework, discovery enables organisations to:

Automatically onboard newly discovered privileged accounts
Continuously monitor privileged activity
Enforce zero-trust security principles
Maintain consistent access policies across the environment

By laying the foundation for centralised control, privileged account discovery helps reduce security risks, supports compliance efforts and streamlines IT and security workflows.

The benefits of privileged account discovery

Privileged account discovery is an important step in securing an organisation's IT environment. By identifying all privileged accounts across multiple systems, organisations can discover hidden security vulnerabilities, gain full visibility and meet compliance with regulatory standards.

Improved security and mitigated risks

Privileged account discovery enhances security by uncovering unmanaged, orphaned or misconfigured accounts that might otherwise go unnoticed. These accounts often have privileged access and, if left unmonitored, introduce serious security vulnerabilities. By identifying these risks, organisations can fix misconfigurations, remove unnecessary accounts and enforce least-privilege access to secure privileged accounts. This proactive approach to monitoring and controlling all privileged access reduces the attack surface and helps prevent both insider threats and external cyber attacks.

Adherence to regulatory compliance

Privileged account discovery helps organisations meet regulatory requirements by providing an accurate inventory of all privileged accounts and assets. Many industry standards, including HIPAA, GDPR and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), require organisations to maintain strict control over sensitive data. By identifying all privileged accounts and maintaining detailed audit logs, organisations can maintain full control over privileged access.

Centralised visibility

By automatically scanning and cataloging accounts on both on-prem and cloud platforms, privileged account discovery gives organisations a real-time view of privileged access across their entire IT infrastructure. Privileged account discovery lets organisations track privileged accounts across systems, identify unauthorised access permissions and see who has access to what privileged information. With a centralised view, IT teams can reduce security risks, enforce consistent access controls and quickly respond to potential cyber threats without relying on manual tracking.

Streamlined privileged account management

Since organisations can't manage what they don't know exists, identifying all privileged accounts is essential to gaining full control across local and cloud environments. By discovering and cataloging these accounts, organisations can bring all privileged accounts under centralised control, assign appropriate access levels and apply policies like session monitoring and credential rotation. Privileged account discovery is typically included in a robust PAM solution, like KeeperPAM, which secures access without exposing credentials, enforces least-privilege access and maintains ongoing security across an organisation.