7 Examples of how Privileged Identity Management Guards Your Business
Privileged access management solutions make it possible for organizations to control administrative and user accounts on a granular level, allowing administrators to control user privileges, and ensuring that administrative actions are properly tracked. Companies that are using Azure AD or considering a shift to Azure AD should consider the advantages of privileged identity management.
Here are some of the most important benefits of privileged identity management.
1. Create a Separation Between End Users and Administrators
Administrators will have privileges beyond what end users do. Administrators will be able to control access for end users, install software, change network settings, and otherwise configure the system. End users will only be able to do what the administrators permit. This reduces the chances that end users could potentially disrupt the system.
Insider threats are among the most commonplace and most difficult to manage. Employees can either maliciously or unintentionally damage a system, by installing malicious programs, changing system settings, or accessing and manipulating information that they shouldn’t. By controlling what users can or can’t do, administrators are able to better protect the whole system.
2. Provide One-Time Administrative Access to Online Services
In the past, employees would have to be given permanent access to specific services if they needed to use those services briefly. Afterwards, it would be up to administrators to remember that the employee’s user account needed to have those privileges revoked. Under PIM, administrators are able to give employees one-time access to online services.
This helps avoid scope creep. Employees aren’t granted privileges that they only need once every few months just because they do need them once every few months; instead, they can requisition privileges as they need.
3. Track Reports Regarding Administrative Access and Actions
PIM provides reports regarding privileged actions, so administrators can review privileged actions that have been taken and ensure that everything is up to security standards.
Reporting is critical for auditing security, and it creates a paper trail if the company may need to track down events that occurred later on. The more reports an organization has, the better chance the organization has of noticing and reacting to potential security vulnerabilities.
This is also important for issues of control and compliance. If there are security breaches, companies will need to be able to show that their administrative access was controlled, and that their records are complete.
4. Get Alerts Regarding Privileged Actions
In addition to reports, administrators can also get alerts regarding privileged actions, so administrators can follow up on these actions and mitigate anything that could be potentially damaging.
The faster damage is mitigated, the better. When there’s a security issue, the company could be losing thousands of dollars a minute. Being able to identify potentially malicious actions quickly and mitigate it can save the company quite a lot in damages, as well as mitigating the potential loss of data.
5. Gain Access to a Consolidated Dashboard of Permissions
Administrators are able to easily review the permissions allotted to users, changing them as desired, and ensuring that they remain correct. Role-based access is an incredibly important method of managing security.
All employees should have the least amount of privileges necessary to do their jobs. Otherwise, they expose the company to risk for no reason. By continually managing permissions, administrative staff are able to reduce the organization’s risk while still ensuring that employees are able to do their jobs.
6. Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication
Multi-factor authentication can be attached to the activation of roles, to protect a system from roles being granted without adequate permission. Multi-factor authentication is a far more reliable method of identity access, and will ensure that roles aren’t granted irresponsibly.
In many organizations, roles are handed out with ease, and users end up with privileges that they shouldn’t have. This makes it difficult to secure the system, and it even makes it harder for the employees, as they have options available to them that they shouldn’t have.
Multi-factor authentication isn’t just important for activation of roles, but also the usage of roles, making it so that employees cannot access the system without proving they are who they say they are. When employees can only access a system with a password, a device, and the correct location, even the most accessible of systems can remain secure.
7. Conduct Access Reviews to Verify Roles
Access reporting can be reviewed to verify whether users still require the privileges granted by their roles. If users are no longer using certain privileges, these privileges can be restricted moving forward. Tightening security in this way can reduce the potential risk to the organization, and an extension of additional privileges in the future can be considered when needed.
Privileged identity management is absolutely critical to organizations using online systems. Through privileged identity management, organizations are able to manage their administrator and user privileges in a centralized dashboard. For more information, contact the experts at Red River.
