For many organizations, management of privileged accounts is a significant challenge. Almost two-thirds of data breaches involve the misuse of such accounts,[1]  with 72% of organizations granting administrator privileges to their third-party suppliers, contractors, and partners.[2]

Locking down access to administrator and other privileged accounts is vital to protecting your organization against data breaches and other cyberattacks. However, it is important to carefully consider the various aspects of a Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution prior to deploying it in your organization’s network environment.

Important Considerations for Privileged Access Management

Your organization’s PAM solution is a significant cybersecurity investment. Privileged credentials are a prime target of cybercriminals since they are often crucial to achieving their objective.When considering potential PAM solutions, it is important to evaluate their ability to meet your organization’s business needs not only today, but also in the future.

Solution Flexibility

One of the most important features of a PAM solution is flexibility. Your organization has unique business cases, so your PAM solution should be capable of meeting those needs.

For example, your organization may have a valid business case for providing administrator-level access to third-parties in order to allow them to perform core business functions. These suppliers and vendors, however, do not require full access to every system within the network. A PAM solution should enable extremely granular configuration to ensure that employees and third-party partners are only granted the access that they require to fulfill their duties.

Additionally, a PAM solution should offer full integration with your organization’s existing cybersecurity deployment. When deploying a new cybersecurity solution, it is vital to ensure that it integrates well with the solutions that you have already put in place.

Scalability

When evaluating any product, it is important to choose the right technology the first time around. After all, your organization’s cybersecurity deployment is an investment. When selecting a new piece of security technology, you should be confident that it can protect your organization now and in the future.

While the evolution of the cyber threat landscape is an important consideration, external changes should not be your sole concern. As your organization grows and moves to better position itself to compete in its industry, it may stand up new branch locations or on board additional employees.

This organizational growth is an important consideration when evaluating PAM solutions. New sites and employees likely require additional privileged accounts, and a more distributed corporate network infrastructure. A PAM solution should be capable of scaling to meet the needs of your organization instead of requiring additional capital investments only a short time after installation.

How MorganFranklin Can Help

MorganFranklin offers consulting and support throughout the entire PAM deployment process. In the design phase, industry experts will work with to identify your organization’s unique business needs and the solution to best meets those needs. MorganFranklin is committed to helping you choose the right PAM solution the first time around, saving your organization from wasted time and resources.

Once the planning stage is complete, MorganFranklin will provide support for deployment, configuration, and management of your PAM solution. With a cybersecurity skills gap of over 4 million,[3] our managed security services (MSS) provides your organization with the talent required to ensure protection against the latest threats.

Sources

[1] https://www.centrify.com/resources/centrify-privileged-access-management-in-the-modern-threatscape-2019/
[2] https://threatpost.com/admin-rights-third-parties-risk/150462/
[3] https://www.isc2.org/News-and-Events/Press-Room/Posts/2019/11/06/ISC2-Finds-the-Cybersecurity-Workforce-Needs-to-Grow–145