Privileged access management is becoming very important for businesses globally. As a business in Africa, it is essential that you understand what it means, how it works, and why you should sign up for a PAM system. Gaining this understanding puts your brand at an advantage and allows you to improve your cybersecurity and protect your brand from all possible risks.
Did you know that according to WebinarCare, 60% of mid-sized businesses that have asked their employees to work remotely experienced a cyberattack, 56% of those experienced credential theft, and 48% experienced social engineering, such as phishing? A survey by Forrester Research revealed that 80% of companies with poor PAM processes had experienced at least one data breach in the past three years.
This post will present you with a clear understanding of privileged access management for businesses. It will cover privileged access management, how it works, and why it is important to businesses like yours.
What is Privileged Access Management?
Privileged Access Management is also known as PAM. It is a set of technologies, strategies, and policies employed to monitor, control, and secure access to service and human accounts. These accounts usually contain critical resources that should be protected from cybersecurity risks.
Another school of thought views PAM as an IT security process that employs policy-based software to control who accesses sensitive information and systems. The accounts under PAM are known as privileged accounts, and they are reliant on secrets to control access. These secrets include certificates, keys, and passwords.
Over the years, privileged access management has evolved, and more strategies have been employed. These have given rise to more robust definitions of the PAM concept. PAM, in a nutshell, determines who accesses privileged accounts and what they are able to do when logged in.
How Does PAM Work?
From the definition above, one can tell that PAM combines three important factors: the technology and information to be protected, the processes required, and the people who access and manage the systems. This brings us to a very important question, “How does Privileged Access Management work?”
Firstly, you need to identify which accounts need and have privileged access. Once you identify these accounts, your next step is determining the policies your business will apply to them. An example of such policies is stating that all service accounts within your system renew their passwords when a user gains access to stored credentials. Another common example is making it mandatory for your system administrators to activate multi-factor authentication (MFA).
Now that you have identified the accounts that require and have privileged access and sorted out your policies, you are almost done. Your next step is to implement a solution that enforces and monitors Privileged Access Management. Two examples we can recommend include BeyondTrust and ManageEngine. These solutions automate your PAM policies and present your administrators with a platform that allows them to monitor and manage your privileged accounts effectively.
Why is PAM Important to Businesses Like Yours?
