Privileged access management is a cybersecurity solution that secures, manages and monitors privileged access to certain critical assets and networks. Historically, privileged access management and key management solutions have been cumbersome. Users often ignore traditional privileged access management and password manager solutions, leaving enterprises exposed to the exact risks they were working to mitigate. To be fully effective, a privileged access management solution should be easy to deploy, simple to use and efficient to maintain. Learn more about the qualities of effective password manager and privileged access management tools below.
Password Manager
Bill Burr, a former manager of the US National Institute of Standards Technology (NIST), wrote the guidelines suggesting passwords use a mix of uppercase & lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. Since writing these guidelines in 2003, however, Burr has admitted that he made them far too complex. In 2017, NIST completed a rewrite of Burr’s guidelines to remove certain password complexity requirements and introduced a condition to check that passwords aren’t already compromised or commonly used.
With a proper privileged access management solution, however, the issues with the original guidelines are irrelevant. As an integral part of any privileged access management solution, password managers should regularly change passwords and store & encrypt them to be disclosed only to admins or programs in which the passwords are required. Additionally, password manager technologies should be customizable, include comprehensive platform coverage, and allow authentication security with hardware security modules, smart cards, USB tokens, and more.
Access Management
Privileged access management is only an effective tool when it can be strictly controlled. To minimize the potential for catastrophic security breaches, certificate management tools should give access to only necessary users at the necessary times. To properly use a certificate management tool, enterprises must develop dynamic internal systems that enable quick adjustments to access when necessary, whether it be the addition or removal of a user. To ease the manpower required in access management, real-time automated certificate monitoring should be a component of every enterprise privileged access management solution.
Observation and Audit
Systems employing privileged access management solutions require detailed observation, monitoring and auditing. Without proper observation, users can cause damage, whether on purpose or not, without being detected. Observation and auditing techniques should be active so they can detect and block anomalous activity. Active observation techniques allow enterprises to catch and contain system breaches as they happen and prevent major damage. In addition to real-time monitoring, extensive audit logs should be available, and all privileged sessions should be video and keystroke recorded, including SSH, RDP and VNC connections.
Finding the Line Between Simplicity and Security
Enterprises must restrict access to keep out malicious attackers and secure systems and data. Although privileged access management is helpful in restricting access to unscrupulous individuals, it also adds an additional layer of complexity to enterprise systems. To find the line between security and simplicity, organizations must use an easy to deploy, simple to use and efficient privileged access management technology. RevBits Privileged Access Management is the first access management solution that provides the three most critical access control tools needed across entire any type of organization.
