9 Best Privileged Access Management (PAM) Software - 2023

Managing privileged access to assets, data, and information is critical in an IT infrastructure. Implementing effective privileged access management policies can improve organizations' security and address potential security risks of privileged accounts. Using an appropriate PAM solution can help IT admins manage privileged accounts in organizations.

In organizations, assets are assigned default privileges and are managed by IT teams. However, these privileges pose a risk to the organization as attackers can exploit the associated privileged accounts to steal essential credentials and misuse privileges.

Implementing a proactive privileged account management process can help IT admins manage privileged accounts and mitigate risks. An appropriate PAM solution allows IT admins to monitor and manage privileged accounts in organizations. This solution can be used as on-premise, SaaS, or cloud-based software. 

Further, the solution helps prevent external and internal threats by implementing the least privileged access policies, providing the users with minimum access to perform their tasks. 

Let us learn more about PAM solutions.

Features of PAM Software

Some of the capabilities that privileged access management software includes are:

• Password Management: PAM tools automate and control the complete process of granting access and passwords to privileged accounts. They also manage access permissions based on roles and policies.

• Multi-factor Authentication: PAM software adds an extra layer of security through multi-factor authentication, which restricts any unauthorized access requests to privileged accounts.

• Real-time Visibility and Alerting: An effective PAM solution enables IT admins to create alerts and immediately address any deviation in account usage.

• Emergency Access: The solution enables IT admins to configure access controls and approval workflows for urgent situations. This is because if any emergency occurs, users can mention it in the system to indicate that there is no requirement for approvals.

• Auditing and Reporting: The PAM solution helps track who has access to resources, saving auditors time in gathering audit and compliance information. 

In this article, we will discuss a comprehensive list of PAM solutions.

9 Privileged Access Management Software

Here, we will walk you through a list of PAM solutions in detail.

1. Zluri

Zluri is a cloud-based SaaS management solution specializing in privileged access management. It helps businesses manage privileged access and protect valuable assets from theft or abuse. Further, it provides users with complete visibility over privileged accounts, assets, and credentials. 

Zluri's automated onboarding and offboarding empower IT teams to grant and revoke access easily. In addition, it helps in onboarding employees based on their role, department, and seniority level and grants them access to the required tools accordingly.

Additionally, workflows can be customized for onboarding and saved as a "playbook" for future use. Finally, with automated provisioning capabilities, companies can monitor processes and track the user's activities. 

Moreover, it has a trigger-based workflow functionality that allows IT admins to manage the rule engine whenever a new user joins the network. Its workflow automation capabilities give businesses the advantage of establishing access rules.

Pros

• Zluri allows IT admins to define rules for privileged users, which empowers the least-privileged access approach.

• The tool automates new privileged user notifications so IT admins can monitor and protect privileged access.

• It keeps track of the number of privileged access and their activities empowering IT admins to identify potential threats and protect the privileged accounts from unauthorized access.

• Also, it gives alerts of threats, malfunctioning, and cyberattacks to users to take immediate action.

• Further, Zluri's intuitive user interface makes the users comfortable to navigate through the features and use them at its potential.

Customer rating

• G2: 4.8/5

• Capterra: 4.9/5

2. One Identity Safeguard

One Identity Safeguard is a PAM solution that protects businesses from internal and external risks. Evaluating the potential risks before granting access to crucial resources assists businesses in adjusting to a changing threat environment. Additionally, it enables businesses to secure, manage, and monitor privileged users and streamline access permission management to improve visibility and control. 

Their strong auto-discovery and provisioning functionality helps IT administrators monitor and remediate vulnerable behaviour. Also, it allows users to access both privileged and non-privileged assets with a single login, eliminating the possibility of human errors in access granting. 

Pros 

• It gives a secure and reliable access management platform to the users.

• It provides multiple options for configuring multi-factor authentication making the users' authentication secure.

Cons 

• It is challenging to track audit logs because they need to be synchronized across the servers, making it difficult to provide appropriate information during the audit.

• Sometimes, the tool needs help integrating with other tools like Active Directory. 

3. Jumpcloud

JumpCloud's open directory platform ensures that only authorized users can access a company's sensitive data, programs, and networks. It provides built-in SSO features that allow administrators to control resource access for privileged and individual users. In addition, setting comprehensive policies and enforcing strong authentication will enable them to demand MFA before providing access.

Additionally, the solution offers password and SSH key management, enabling IT admins to impose precise limits on the password and make it secure for privileged accounts. Further, IT admins receive notifications when passwords are about to expire or are under attack. 

Moreover, their device management features allow IT managers to alert privileged users to update passwords at predetermined intervals while automatically updating credentials and access across their devices.

Pros 

• The tool can synchronize with your existing active and cloud directories making access management easy.

• It can centrally manage all the SaaS solutions in organizations which helps IT admins to provide access and monitor them.

Cons 

• Currently, the tool is limited to integration with Microsoft Azure and Google Workspace for the cloud directories.

• It has a steep learning curve as technical knowledge is required to setup users' accounts and modify settings.

Customer rating

• G2: 4.6/5

4. Broadcom Symantec

The Broadcom Symantec offers a PAM platform focused on assisting enterprises in controlling access to high-level corporate accounts, lowering the possibilities of credential-related breaches, and ensuring compliance with industrial standards. It also provides a secure repository for storing sensitive information such as master and admin passwords and SSH keys.

The tool helps IT admins to monitor privileged user activity, comparing recent activities with historical activities using machine learning algorithms to detect unusual or malicious patterns. It also enables administrators to configure automatic repairs for suspicious patterns to prevent lateral threats from spreading over the infrastructure. 

Additionally, the solution records audit information from privileged sessions and stores it in an encrypted repository to provide auditing, compliance, or forensic analysis of risky behaviours.

Pros

• It allows viewing the potential threats that will alert the IT admins to take necessary actions and prevent the organization.

• IT teams can centrally manage and monitor the IT infrastructure, including privileged accounts. 

Cons

• The tool lacks in providing different templates to accelerate configuration. 

• It frequently changes policy, hindering the organization's regular operations.

Customer rating

• G2: 4.4 /5

5. Foxpass

Foxpass offers a privileged access management solution that streamlines and automates server and network access to secure business systems. As a result, it alleviates the workload on the IT department. In addition, the tool integrates with pre-existing systems, such as cloud-based email and single sign-on (SSO) solutions, allowing users to configure their security protocols quickly. 

The solution's extensive API facilitates automated server access control, user data updates, and group membership management for admins. In addition, the API keeps track of authentication requests, allowing managers to monitor information of users gaining access to mission-critical systems. The Foxpass provides an industry-level security scalable environment and is accessible on both on-premise and cloud. 

Pros 

• It allows the IT teams to fully control user management in organizations, which helps monitor privileged users.

• It provides integration with other authentication systems like Okta to ensure secure access.

Cons 

• The tool needs auditable logs, making it incompetent to provide the required information during the audit.

• It is complex to add users to the tool, making tracking users and their access to tools troublesome.

Customer rating

• G2: 4.8/5

• Capterra: 4.8/5

6. Arcon

ARCON's identity management solution ensures the security of sensitive information by anticipating and eliminating potential threats. In addition, it enables business security professionals to protect and manage privileged accounts' lifecycles and secures privileged credentials against external cyber-attacks.

The solution provides an encrypted password repository that ensures access to sensitive information by creating and maintaining variable, strong passwords for limited authorized users. In addition, with its on-premises OTP validation tools, ARCON confirms user identities and integrates with additional authentication systems to add security layers to the repository.

In addition, ARCON's reporting engine delivers a comprehensive audit record of privileged actions, including reports and analytics based on users' activities. This makes it possible for management and authorities to evaluate the organization's compliance status.

Pros 

• It provides the facility to integrate with various tools like Nessus that helps in scanning credentials.

• It offers efficient recording capability allowing users to keep track of unusual activities.

Cons 

• It demands frequent login to the apps with OTP and makes the login process cumbersome.

• Sessions often get terminated and cause hindrance to the remote server.

Customer rating

• G2: 4.6 /5

7. CyberArk

CyberArk is a PAM solution that helps IT teams secure, manage and record privileged account activities. It provides multi-layered security to privileged accounts with centralized management. Also, it gives IT admins a complete view of users' access across the organizations. 

CyberArk monitors privileged access, detects malfunctioning activities, and secures IT infrastructure by validating the privileged access only when the IT administrator grants them. In addition, it allows provisioning access to the users, automatically rotating accounts for privileged sessions. 

Further, their recording functionality helps the IT admins visualize any suspicious activity. CyberArk solution alerts and automatically terminate privileged access in case of cyber threats and suspicious leaks. In addition, it fully integrates with SaaS deployment solutions and gives cloud transitions scalable options by providing advanced core privileged access security.  

Pros

• The tool provides third-party integrations, which makes it easy to grant and monitor access.

• It can monitor every connection within the organization.

Cons 

• It has a steep learning curve, making it difficult for users to use the tool.

• It requires professionals to make any changes initially, which limits the tool's usage and consumes time and resources to function at its potential.

Customer rating

• G2: 4.1 /5

8. Beyond Trust

BeyondTrust is a PAM tool that provides various solutions, such as DevOps, high-level security and visibility, and network device environments. In addition, this tool's privileged access provides internal and third-party access without a VPN.

Moreover, by integrating with BeyondTrust's Password Safe, their PAM solution provides secure credential functionality, allowing credentials to store in the vault to inject into a session directly.

Additionally, the solution includes monitoring and tracking, and auditing tools that allows IT administrators to configure notification and authorization options to be notified when a user accesses privileged remote access.

Pros 

• It provides an easy platform to manage organizations' inventories that involves privileged accounts.

• It gives you detailed information about your server to detect unauthorized access and prevent your organization.

Cons 

• It isn't easy to retrieve data using integrated tools that limit the visibility of privileged information

• The initial setup is difficult, making the usage of the tool complicated.

Customer rating

• G2: 4.5/5

9. Delinea

The Delinea Secret Server offers PAM that assists businesses in managing and protecting access to privileged corporate databases, apps, hypervisors, security solutions, and network hardware. Their advanced security capabilities and comprehensive lifecycle monitoring and auditing capabilities assist organizations in protecting privileged accounts from assaults. Also, maintain compliance with data protection laws.

Using a centralized PAM solution, Secret Server safeguards all privileged credentials and requests for two-factor authentication before granting access to users. In addition, the platform allows the configuration of password and credentials rotation policies. Further, it helps in provisioning and deprovisioning the proper access. This reduces the possibility of password theft by updating static passwords. 

Moreover, Delinea Secret Server provides the session recording functionality to record tasks and identify the root cause of unethical or suspicious behaviour.

Pros

• It provides granular reports that are useful for auditing.

• The tool is flexible for customization to meet organizations' requirements.

Cons 

• It is difficult to access all applications in your organization, making managing privileged access inefficient.

• It is expensive compared to other tools.

Customer rating

• G2: 4.4/5