Privileged Access Management Best Practices

The Importance of Privileged Access Management

Privileged accounts, which are necessary for managing IT environments and enabling administrative tasks, are vulnerable targets that when compromised, can lead to the exploitation of sensitive information and critical systems. Despite the risks posed by compromised privileged accounts, many organizations fail to implement basic PAM security measures.

It is crucial for organizations to prioritize the protection of privileged accounts such as;

• Domain Admins
• Local Administrators
• Root Accounts
• Service Accounts
• Network Accounts
• Application Accounts
• Automation Accounts

In addition to making it a lot harder for cybercriminals to breach IT systems, PAM helps in achieving compliance, improves the on-boarding/off-boarding process and helps meet cyber insurance requirements, to name a few of the benefits that come with PAM.

Privileged Access Management Best Practices

Below are the most notable PAM best practices:

Understand your PAM environment

Organizations may unknowingly have backdoor accounts and undetected user accounts that can bypass controls and auditing. It is crucial for organizations to identify privileged accounts and map out important business functions that rely on them. Understanding who has access to privileged accounts and when they are used is essential for effective management. Additionally, organizations should consider implementing PAM best practices for their cloud environments, as more organizations are adopting cloud services.

Establish a privileged account password policy

Having strong privileged account password protection policies in place is crucial for preventing unauthorized access and ensuring security compliance. It’s important to define what privileged access management means for your business and include requirements for both human and non-human accounts. For human accounts, passphrases are recommended over complex passwords, as forcing complexity and frequent rotation can lead to user fatigue and increase the risk of compromised credentials. Implementing a passwordless authentication experience, combined with a robust privileged access management solution, can significantly improve authentication and authorization for employees. It’s also important to regularly update all privileged account passwords automatically and simultaneously, with the frequency varying based on the type of account and security concerns.

Change default credentials

Using default usernames and passwords poses a major security threat as they are an easy target for cybercriminals. Default software configurations often have simple, well-known passwords, and these passwords are usually the same across all systems from a specific vendor or product line. These default passwords are meant for initial setup and testing and should be changed before using the system in a production environment.

Manage shared accounts

Shared accounts are vulnerable to cyberattacks and lack accountability. Because multiple users have access, it is difficult to attribute specific account activity to a single user. This increases the security risk. To mitigate these risks, it is important to use privileged access management (PAM) security solutions that allow for full auditing of access and usage.

Monitor privileged account activity

Protecting privileged accounts is vital for enforcing the adherence to security protocols, and preventing mistakes. Session monitoring, recording, and auditing contribute to this protection by letting employees and IT users know that their activities are being monitored. Additionally, monitoring privileged account usage helps in digital forensics to identify the cause of a breach and improve critical controls to reduce future cybersecurity threats. Auditing privileged accounts also provides cybersecurity metrics that give executives, like the CISO, important information for making informed business decisions.

Enforce least privilege access

The Principal of Least Privilege (PoLP) ensures that users only have access to what they need to do their job. This reduces the risk of compromised endpoints, which are a common entry point for attacks. By removing administrative privileges on endpoints and using application control, least privilege can be implemented without disrupting productivity. Privileged Elevation and Delegation Management (PEDM) is important for allowing users to elevate privileges when necessary for administrative tasks.

Educate employees about PAM

Security awareness training plays a crucial role in enhancing PAM within an organization, which includes educating employees about the potential risks associated with unauthorized access. Training helps employees understand the importance of using strong authentication techniques when accessing sensitive information. Additionally, security awareness training promotes a culture of accountability, ensuring that employees understand their responsibilities in protecting privileged access and maintaining security standards.

How Lepide Helps with Privileged Access Management

The Lepide Data Security Platform provides valuable insights into the behavior and hierarchy of your privileged users. Our Privileged Access Management solution makes it easy to identify the number of privileged users in your organization and closely monitor their interactions with sensitive data. Likewise, you can track their logon/logoff activity and receive real-time alerts for any unusual user activity. Our solution also assists you in hardening your Active Directory by identifying inactive users/computers, problematic accounts, legacy issues, passwords that never expire and over-privileged users, making your PAM efforts more streamlined.

If you’d like to see how the Lepide Data Security Platform can help with Privileged Access Management, schedule a demo with one of our engineers.