For most companies PAM is something that is associated with creating borders or limitations. Often organizations are forced to implement PAM due to the legal regulations and do not see it as an investment but rather consider cybersecurity as a cost center. Moreover, most employees think of it as another layer of control and make an assumption that the company does not trust them.
All that simply does not create an environment for the perception of PAM as an instrument that can help pave a path to a resilient future of the company. This kind of mindset has to be built as not all companies can think that way.
Through our everyday practice we face this issue a lot and based on our experience have made several conclusions that can help clients create the right mindset of their team on cybersecurity.
Accessibility not control
It’s assumed that the only goal of PAM implementation is to get total control over what employees are doing during their working hours. Although it is true that it’s an instrument of control, it’s not just about that. PAM is a daily tool for providing and receiving access. Therefore, it is important that this tool is convenient and does not provoke user errors and create more work for the IT personnel.
More admin-friendly instruments
First of all, PAM administrators need a convenient tool for granting access, if you make a mistake in this operation, the PAM user will either not be able to do their job, or will gain unreasonably wide access to company resources. For PAM users, user friendliness is equally important. During the working day, they repeatedly gain access through PAM, and if this procedure is not implemented in the best way, users will accumulate negativity towards PAM and try to gain access bypassing the system. A good example of taking care of users in PAM systems is providing them with a user-friendly connection manager. To optimize desktop space, better organize connections and eliminate the need to switch between different windows you can use Desktop Console. Such an application allows you to open several sessions in one window at once, each in its own tab – similar to an Internet browser.
More secure admins work place
Another aspect of PAM that makes it easier for IT administrators is password management for privileged credentials. With PAM, an administrator no longer needs to store passwords and ssh keys for privileged accounts and be responsible for their secure use. PAM does this job.
The more convenient PAM is, the fewer mistakes employees make when working with PAM, the fewer the risks of misconfiguration of access, and the higher the user experience.
Solution to cut bureaucracy in procedures
The IT department spends hours dealing with administrative tasks and requests and managing any other problems that come with manual IT security systems instead of doing meaningful and fulfilling tasks. PAM implementation can save your employees time and improve your employee experience management.
Cybersecurity is investment not expense
It is generally thought that cybersecurity improvement is an expense. Implementation of PAM seems like a decision that is somehow forced either by regulators or just by the fear of cyber threats. When those are the main reasons, it is hard to see what else is there. On the other hand there are many benefits that can be a great investment for the company, like reducing administrative burden and making company resources work more efficiently.
Strong competitive advantages
If you keep some clients’ data, they should feel safe giving it to you, then they are less likely to go to your competitors. However, if you do not protect and monitor the information that was entrusted, they will find a company that will. Even if you do not store such data, the reputation of your company is very important for the competition and data breaches are not a good PR company.
Risk resilience tool
Every organization needs to consider the size of the risk they take by neglecting security. It is not a secret that as long as you store some valuable data you are a target for cyber attacks. One data breach can be the end of your business.
Privileged access monitoring eliminates problems with regulators
They say that prevention is better than cure. There are numerous incidents where non-adherence to the compliance policies made the future of organizations bleak. Regulators demand lots of parameters to comply with and PAM implementation fulfills them by default.
Privileged access management is a must have not luxury
Became easy to implement solution
The cybersecurity market is evolving and PAM is emerging as a staple of it. Implementing PAM is not complicated anymore, but it should be a systematized process and with the understanding of the main principles it can be very easy. We created a 5 steps guide, which is available to download at the end of this article. It describes the main parts of that process and helps our partners and customers to navigate at the beginning.
Became cybersec common practice
As already mentioned, PAM is emerging as a staple of modern cybersecurity. It is not some unreachable technology that is only used in enterprises.
Not an expensive tool anymore
It’s a common belief that PAM is an expensive solution and not every company can afford it. However, there are more products on the market nowadays and more often than not companies can find a solution that fits the requirements and has a reasonable price. The secret is to actually understand the goal you are trying to achieve and know what features are most important for that.
Your mindset is a key and execution is the path the resilient cybersecurity
By setting the right mindset you will open the door to the new cybersecurity approach but there is a long way to go to get to the resilient cybersecurity future of your organization. Achieving this state has a lot to do with organizational decisions and prioritizations. Do not wait around hoping that nothing will happen – start acting. There are many resources available to help you make a decision, you can start with KuppingerCole Leadership Compass, then move to Side by Side solutions piloting and finally get to the PAM implementation. Don’t be threatened by the complexity of the process, find yourself a vendor who is willing to go through this process with you.
