Securing Your Business: The Essential Role of Privileged Access Management (PAM)

Privileged Access Management, or PAM, is a technological approach that businesses use to limit cyber breaches and prevent the distribution of malware. But what does that really mean and does your business need to implement it? The answer is YES and here is why.

Estimated read time: 3 minutes

Hamilton Business Technologies employee reviewing computer files security.

Controlled Access Ensures More Security

What exactly is PAM? Simply put, it is the business practice of giving employees access only to what they need for their specific jobs while limiting or restricting access to things that they don’t. This practice enforces the standard of least privilege that grants users the minimum access required to perform their responsibilities.

For the most part, privileges in the business world consist of different access levels your employees have with regard to your network and its documents. One example of PAM is the ability to open/read and/or modify certain documents. In some cases, users are given the ability to open and read documents only, while others are given access to modify it as well.

Consider an employee in marketing; he or she probably does not have the privilege of viewing—let alone editing or deleting—documents that the human resources department manages. Along these same lines, it’s likely that users in one department don’t even have access to folders where another department keeps all its data. Within departments, employees can have different privileges based on their roles.

Privileged accounts typically belong to employees who have elevated permissions within an organization. Managers and administrators with privileged accounts are those who can do things for your company like install software, access sensitive data, manage user accounts or adjust system settings. Hackers often target these privileged accounts because they have more control over an organization’s systems and data.

Benefits of PAM: Tracking and Compliance

Let’s review a few of the benefits that implementing a PAM solution into your organization can deliver. One of the primary advantages to adopting PAM is the enhanced visibility capabilities for organizations to be able to see who has accessed the network and company devices. An audit trail allows you to see who is trying to access areas of your network that require certain authorization.

Additionally, PAM gives you visibility to track when, where and potentially what actions the authorized users have taken. Because PAM collects all this data, you can set up notifications to alert you to various activity on your network. This level of notification and information makes it easier for you or your Managed Service Provider (MSP) to investigate potential security threats.

PAM also helps you comply with regulations in industries such as healthcare and finance. As more regulations are implemented around data protection, you may be required to manage and/or track such account access. Some entities already require a policy of least privilege in the day-to-day operations. In the case of an audit or a bid for business, you can prove compliance with little effort via the implementation of PAM.

Last but not least, privileged access management decreases your risk of suffering a cybersecurity or ransomware attack. When you limit a user’s access to just the business necessities, you reduce an attack’s ability to infiltrate your network and cause considerable damage.

Steps for Implementing PAM

Implementing a “least privilege” principle into your business begins with defining your goals for the project. Once you identify the purpose it will serve for your organization, you will then need to review the different roles and responsibilities of your staff members and their respective departments. Organizing employees and their work tasks will make establishing this least privileged principle a much quicker process.

Subsequently, the next steps involve a risk assessment and the actual deployment with functionality testing. This is where the rubber meets the road, and many companies opt to hire an MSP to help them analyze and implement various PAM restrictions. An experienced MSP can more easily secure resources and create the most efficient roadmap for deployment. Privileges are essential for system administration and management tasks but they can pose security risks and take a long time if not managed properly.

The Importance of Privileged Access Management

Bad actors continue to wreak havoc in all industries in cities and states across our country and throughout the world. Protect your biggest assets — your business, your data and your customers. You need to implement PAM, and Hamilton Business Technologies has the expertise to help you do that effectively. Connect with us by filling out the form below or just give us a call at 308.381.1000 to talk to our experts. They are available to answer any questions you have!