CIOs say that adoption of updated IT strategies has given hackers new opportunities to prey upon IT vulnerabilities
IT leaders encouraged investing in infrastructure with technologies that drive initiatives like digital transformation, automation of processes and tasks, etc., to boost growth. This scenario has however encouraged cyber-attackers to identify and breach new liabilities in the system network. IT leadership globally feels that privileged access management (PAM) solutions help to secure routes to crucial business data. This could act as a key factor in ensuring effective corporate cybersecurity measures. Unfortunately, hackers find PAM as an important target to gain easy access to critical data, thus a good PAM strategy is a vital defense layer.
IT security leaders have worked to implement proper PAM protocols to ensure better operational efficiency and less risk. Following myths have affected the implementation of PAM across organizations
Myth 1: It’s impossible to secure PAM, since its present everywhere
Implementing PAM across a huge IT network is complex, but restricted PAM and proper policies can reduce the attack surface by blocking the routes directing to critical resources. CIOs say that this can be done by mapping the location of privileged credentials in the hybrid and cloud environments hence saving effort and time for the security teams. Modern PAM tools automatically rotate privileged credentials and SSH keys at regular periods to avoid errors due to manual work and are compliant to regulations. IT leaders prefer PAM, as it provides detailed reports on sessions that can be analyzed for incident response and compliance teams. The tool also analyses risky user behavior and suspends access to such credentials.
How a Right Strategic Partner Adds Value to Digital Transformation
Myth 2: Administrators find it difficult to manage PAM tools
Contrary to the myth, IT leaders feel that PAM tools simplify and ease the workload on admins. Consolidating the data of all privileged credentials in a central vault helps to reduce the time required to search for the credentials and manage the relevant accounts. CIOs say that the efficacy and efficiency of a project get a high boost by this process. When organizations implement a public or hybrid cloud platform, even the slightest misconfiguration can result in liabilities. Holistic tools are required to manage the risks associated with privileged accounts management.
Myth 3: PAM can be protected by IAM solutions alone
IT leaders acknowledge that PAM solutions can’t be eliminated by implementing Identity Access Management and Multi-Factor Authentication solutions. PAM tools focus on reducing risks and protection of users from engineering attacks that can potentially bypass MFA protocol. Security teams point out that contrary to PAM, IAM protocol requires direct access to user databases including Active Directory. Such databases and connections are generally present on-premise. If such a server is breached or compromised, hackers can easily gain control over the networks and launch malware attacks.
Myth 4: PAM solutions makes it difficult to calculate ROI
IT Security teams say that PAM is a high leverage solution that enables modest investments to quote outsized ROI and reduce risk. Privileged access allows firms to demonstrate the areas where security solutions have a major impact. Proper implementation of the solution helps organizations to understand the number of unsecured and unprotected networks. Once each unsecured account is identified, secured, and protected by the solution, the potential attack surface is substantially reduced and ROI proof is generated.
