Privileged access management (PAM) plays a pivotal role in building a strong security strategy. PAM empowers you to significantly reduce cybersecurity risks, gain tighter control over privileged access, achieve regulatory compliance, and reduce the burden on your IT team.

As an established provider of a PAM solution, we've witnessed firsthand how PAM transforms organizational security. In this article, we aim to show you how PAM can secure your company in real, impactful ways.

1. Enforcing the principle of least privilege

Giving users just enough access to perform their duties is fundamental to maintaining a robust security posture. PAM solutions enable you to grant minimum permissions to employees essential for their work, helping you prevent privilege misuse and potential security incidents. For example, with PAM, you can securely grant access to sensitive payment systems exclusively for your finance department.

When you enforce the principle of least privilege at this granular level, you reduce the chances of malicious actors leveraging excessive permissions to gain unauthorized entry into your critical systems.

2. Implementing a just-in-time (JIT) approach to access management

By granting access permissions on demand and revoking them dynamically, you can significantly shrink your attack surface. With a PAM solution, you can automate the entire JIT PAM process - configure access requests, approvals, and time-bound permissions.

For instance, if software engineers require access to a production environment to troubleshoot an issue, PAM solutions enable you to grant temporary access and automatically revoke it once the problem is resolved. Thereby, you minimize the risk of privilege misuse lingering long after the task is completed.

3. Granting access to third-party vendors

Security extends beyond internal employees as collaborations with third parties also introduce vulnerabilities. PAM solutions allow you to provide vendors with time-limited, task-specific access to your systems and monitor their activity in real time. With PAM, you can also promptly revoke third-party access when a project is completed, ensuring no dormant accounts remain unattended.

Suppose you engage third-party administrators to manage your database. In this case, PAM enables you to restrict their access based on a "need-to-know" basis, track their activities within your systems, and automatically remove their access once they complete the job.

4. Monitoring privileged user activity

Visibility is the key to preventing both external and internal threats. By monitoring privileged users, you can detect suspicious activity early, stopping potential security incidents before they occur. PAM solutions like Syteca offer real-time monitoring of privileged user actions, allowing you to identify and address unusual behavior instantly.

PAM solutions with user activity monitoring capabilities enable you to record, flag, and replay every action of privileged users. And by capturing and reviewing privileged sessions, you can quickly respond to incidents, pinpoint their root cause, and perform thorough investigations to build a more resilient security posture.

5. Automating password management and rotation

Reused or weak passwords are easy targets for attackers. Relying on manual password management adds another layer of risk, as it is both tedious and prone to human error. That's where PAM solutions with password management capabilities can make a difference. Such solutions can help you secure passwords throughout their entire lifecycle — from creation and storage to automatic rotation.

By handling credentials with such PAM solutions and setting permissions according to user roles, you can make sure all the passwords are accessible only to authorized users. Additionally, thanks to real-time monitoring and alerting capabilities of some PAM systems, you can spot suspicious access attempts and stop brute force attacks or other credential-based threats.

6. Securing remote access

For organizations practicing remote and hybrid work models, PAM offers essential security by enabling safe and controlled access to privileged accounts. Deploying a PAM solution can help you enforce strict access policies, verify user identities with multi-factor authentication (MFA), and ensure that only authorized personnel can get access to sensitive systems.

Additionally, some PAM solutions can log and record each remote session in real time. This level of control and visibility can help you ensure that your sensitive systems remain protected even when accessed from outside your corporate network, from diverse remote locations.

7. Protecting cloud environments

Cloud environments present unique security challenges due to their complex structures and limited visibility compared to on-premise systems. As organizations continue moving to hybrid or fully cloud-based setups, managing privileged access in these environments becomes crucial.

With the help of a PAM solution, you can limit access to your cloud environment only to verified users, thus, reducing the chance of unauthorized entry. Furthermore, PAM's robust logging and monitoring capabilities allow you to maintain a clear audit trail of who accessed what, when, and from where.

8. Supporting incident response

If a security incident occurs, every second counts, and prompt response can be crucial in limiting potential damage. PAM can aid you by quickly identifying which accounts have been accessed and isolating them swiftly.

Moreover, PAM solutions often integrate with security information and event management (SIEM) systems, further enhancing your incident response efforts. By feeding data from your PAM solution directly into the SIEM, you centralize all security information in one place. This can be particularly useful for correlating privilege-related activity with other security events across your network and implementing targeted, effective measures promptly.

9. Mitigating insider threats

PAM helps mitigate insider threats by securing all privileged accounts throughout their entire lifecycle. For instance, PAM solutions with account discovery capabilities let you automatically reveal any new, unmanaged privileged account and integrate it into your system, where you can further protect them with mandatory MFA, session recording, and regular password rotation.

Additionally, you can limit who can access, manage, or modify privileged account credentials. For example, you may specify that only your senior IT administrators have permission to alter or view account credentials.

10. Streamlining cybersecurity compliance

PAM not only strengthens your ability to prevent, detect, and respond to security incidents but also supports your compliance efforts. From the GDPR to NIS2, different cybersecurity laws, standards, and regulations mandate organizations to restrict access to sensitive systems and data to authorized users only and monitor accounts with elevated permissions.

PAM solutions often deliver comprehensive audit trails of privileged user activities, helping you streamline the audit process. Privileged access records can also help you ensure compliance with internal governance policies, providing clear evidence that privileged accounts are managed responsibly and securely.

Ultimately, PAM plays a vital role in building a strong cybersecurity foundation. The Syteca PAM solution empowers you to take control of privileged access within your IT environment. Syteca can help you implement granular access controls, monitor privileged users, generate comprehensive user activity reports, as well as get real-time alerts on suspicious user behavior and quickly respond to potential threats. Designed with adaptability in mind, Syteca supports numerous platforms and integrates seamlessly with existing IT infrastructures.

About the author: Ani Khachatryan, Syteca's Chief Technology Officer, started her journey in Syteca as a test manager. In this role, she successfully renovated the testing processes and helped integrate development best practices across the company. Her strong background in testing and striving for perfection helps Ani come up with unconventional solutions to technical and operational issues, while her deep expertise in cybersecurity establishes her as an expert in the industry.