Security & Compliance

  • 10 min read

5 Ways To Securing Privileged Access In Your Organization

Rohit Rao

20th September, 2023

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Granting privileged access to your employees and other third-party entities has become a necessary and fundamental practice. However, the security and control of this access are paramount. 

Without robust measures in place, your network, systems, and data could be vulnerable to compromise, potentially aligning your organization to a privileged credential breach. 

Let’s explore the risks associated with unsecured privileged access and how you can safeguard privileged access in your organization. 

Privilege misuse stands out as a prominent cybersecurity threat in the current scenario, frequently leading to significant financial losses and the potential disruption of businesses. This misuse allows unrestricted access to your organization's critical operations, often without detection until significant damage occurs. As a result, it continues to be a preferred strategy among hackers due to its effectiveness.

But first, let's have a look at what privileged access is and who privileged users are. So, privileged access involves elevated permissions given to certain individuals, allowing them to access critical systems, sensitive data, and vital functionalities. Such access is commonly granted to sys admins, IT teams, app owners, and third-party personnel responsible for essential infrastructure. 

Those with these heightened permissions are termed privileged users, holding a unique position in the hierarchy and capable of impacting the organization's digital environment. These privileged users possess authority over critical systems and data, emphasizing the need for strict controls to safeguard organizational security

As a result, securing privileged access is a critical aspect of maintaining a robust cybersecurity posture for any organization. Creating a robust security framework relies on the skillful management of privileged credentials and vigilant control over user access. 

In this guide, we will delve into the various aspects of securing privileged access, from understanding potential risks to implementing effective measures that mitigate those risks and enhance overall organization’s security. 

Potential Risks Associated with Unsecured Privileged Access

Unsecured privileged access poses substantial risks to your organization's cybersecurity. It opens the door to data breaches and security incidents, potentially exposing sensitive information to unauthorized individuals. Furthermore, it can disrupt business continuity by leading to system outages and service downtime. 

Let’s discuss some potential risks linked to inadequate privileged access security:-

1. Data Breaches and Security Incidents

Unsecured privileged access lays down a treacherous path, inviting potential data breaches and security incidents. Hackers and malicious actors often target these vulnerable access points, leveraging them as gateways to infiltrate sensitive systems and valuable data. Once inside, they can unleash havoc, compromise proprietary information, and tarnish your organization's reputation. 

Ensuring robust privileged access management (PAM) is vital to safeguarding sensitive data and thwarting insider threats and unauthorized entry. Organizations become susceptible to data breaches, intellectual property theft, and reputation damage without proper PAM measures. The significance of effective PAM lies in upholding data security, preventing insider risks, and reducing the likelihood of unauthorized access.

2. Impact on Business Continuity

The repercussions of unsecured privileged access extend beyond data breaches, gravely impacting business continuity. Insufficient controls over privileged access can severely hinder a company's capacity to oversee and regulate system configurations, resulting in operational inefficiencies and heightened periods of downtime. 

Inadequate Access Management protocols further elevate the risk of insider access to critical systems, jeopardizing data confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Exploited access can lead to system outages, disruptions in critical operations, and even widespread service downtime. The resulting chaos hampers productivity and can erode customer trust and lead to financial losses.

3. Compliance and Regulatory Consequences

Unsecured privileged access is a breach of compliance and regulatory mandates that govern data protection and privacy. Organizations are accountable for safeguarding sensitive information and upholding industry-specific standards. Failing to secure privileged access can result in severe penalties, legal liabilities, and reputational damage. 

Compliance breaches tarnish an organization's image and incur financial setbacks that can be detrimental in the long run. An organization can face substantial financial ramifications from a data or compliance breach, including hefty fines, legal expenses, and business losses. Such incidents often lead to multi-million-dollar lawsuits and settlements, highlighting the severe financial consequences that can arise.

The risks associated with unsecured privileged access are multifaceted and far-reaching, underscoring the urgent need for robust security measures and vigilant access management practices. By addressing these risks head-on, organizations can mitigate potential threats, uphold business continuity, and align with regulatory requirements.

Securing Privileged Access: Step-by-Step Strategy

To effectively counter the potential risks outlined earlier, your IT team should focus on implementing comprehensive privileged access security measures. By embracing proactive management practices, you can substantially fortify your organization's digital defenses and ensure a resilient cybersecurity stance. 

Here's how:

1. Discover & Centralize All Privileged Accounts 

Discovering & centralizing all privileged accounts is crucial to securing privileged access within your organization. It involves identifying and consolidating all accounts with elevated privileges across various systems and applications. This process helps create a comprehensive inventory of privileged accounts, ensuring none are overlooked or unmanaged.

For instance, let's consider a financial institution. They have multiple servers, databases, and financial software systems that are crucial for daily operations. Different teams have admin-level access to these systems to ensure smooth transactions and data management. Without proper centralization, it's possible that some former employees' accounts still have access, posing a security risk.

By identifying and centralizing all privileged accounts, the financial institution can ensure that all these accounts are accounted for and properly managed. If employees leave the company, their access can be promptly revoked, reducing the risk of unauthorized access. Regular audits and reviews can also be conducted on this centralized list to maintain the security of these critical accounts.

Once these accounts are identified, they are centralized into a secure repository or identity management system. This repository becomes the single source of truth for all privileged access, making it easier to monitor, manage, and control these accounts effectively.

Is there any solution that assists in discovering and centralizing all privileged accounts within your organization?

Modern IGA solutions, such as Zluri, make it easy to discover and centralize all your organization's critical SaaS apps and users. 

This is accomplished through a combination of five distinct discovery methods: single sign-on (SSO), identity providers (IDPs), financial & expense management systems, API integrations, desktop agents (optional), and browser extensions (optional).

By creating a comprehensive overview of "who has access to what," Zluri enables organizations to make well-informed choices regarding user permissions, ensuring regulatory compliance and bolstering data security.

Through the adoption of contextual access control, precise authorization, and rigorous auditing and certification, Zluri empowers you to elevate your security stance and assume unprecedented command over access management.

Zluri's capabilities extend beyond discovery – it seamlessly integrates with over 800 SaaS apps, delivering real-time data, valuable insights, and AI-powered alerts to keep you in the loop. Through API-based integrations, Zluri guarantees comprehensive data discovery across all your SaaS applications, ensuring no information remains hidden. You can rely on Zluri to provide an unobstructed view of your entire SaaS environment.

Furthermore, boasting an extensive library with over 225,000 apps, Zluri excels at furnishing intricate access data. It delves deep into the particulars, granting you an all-encompassing comprehension of user permissions and access levels within your SaaS realm. This level of granularity and detailing guarantees that no essential aspect escapes attention.

2. Enforce Separation of Privileges & Separation of Duties

A vital facet of this endeavor involves implementing separation of privileges and separation of duties. These strategic measures are integral to fortifying an organization's defense against threats and unauthorized access. 

Separation of privileges entails segmenting access permissions to prevent any one individual from attaining excessive control over critical systems and data. Multiple measures are included in privilege separation, including the segregation of administrative functions from standard account requirements, the isolation of auditing/logging capabilities within administrative accounts, and the differentiation of distinct system functions like read, edit, write, and execute.

Upon establishing the principles of least privilege and separation of privilege, the groundwork for the enforcement of separation of duties is laid. Separation of duties involves assigning distinct tasks to different personnel to curtail the possibility of conflicts of interest and internal abuse. Privileges for each privileged account should be meticulously tailored for specific tasks to minimize any unnecessary overlap between different accounts.

Through the rigorous implementation of these security controls, even if an IT personnel holds both standard user and admin accounts, their routine activities should be restricted to the standard account. Access to various admin accounts should only be granted for authorized tasks requiring elevated privileges, ensuring a controlled and secure operational environment.

Does Zluri help you enforce segregation of duties?

Zluri streamlines the process of enforcing separation of duties by granting access to specific entitlements, workspaces, and groups. In practical terms, Zluri empowers you to allocate precise privileges and permissions to individuals or teams, aligning with their designated roles and responsibilities within your organization. 

This approach ensures that no single individual possesses excessive control or undue authority across various essential functions. As a result, the likelihood of potential conflicts of interest and unauthorized activities is minimized, bolstering the overall integrity and security of your operational framework.

3. Implement Contextual Just-in-Time Access To to Reduce Attack Surface

Make things safer by using "just-in-time access," a strategy designed to mitigate potential vulnerabilities. This means permitting the use of the cloud management console only when needed, not always. When someone starts a session, they get permission to access it, but only for a specific time. This helps ensure that only the right people can get into important things when necessary and only for a short while, which keeps everything secure.

In short, Just-in-time access is like giving someone a key to a room only when they need to go inside. They don't always have the key, so they can't enter whenever they want. Similarly, for the organizational SaaS apps and systems, users are given access only when they have a specific task to do. This prevents unnecessary access and reduces the chances of a security breach.

So, carefully controlling when and how users gain access to critical resources significantly reduces the attack surface, fortifying an organization's defense against potential threats.

Does Zluri offer a solution for granting Just-in-Time Access?

Yes, of course! Zluri's Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) solution empowers IT teams with Just-in-Time (JIT) Access capabilities to effectively tackle access challenges. The IGA platform incorporates an Enterprise App Store (EAS) solution that replaces traditional ticketing systems, allowing efficient management of JIT access requests. EAS offers a curated selection of pre-approved SaaS apps, enabling employees to easily request JIT access to specific applications through an intuitive web portal. 

This user-friendly interface allows for instant access requests and provides real-time tracking, enhancing the overall access process. Once access requirements or job responsibilities are fulfilled, IT teams can revoke access or set up automated workflows for its automatic removal.

Zluri's integration with HRMS ensures that designated approvers have comprehensive insights into user identity and context, enabling secure and efficient access approvals. The result is a streamlined and optimized access process that elevates the employee experience.

Note: It guarantees that employees are granted access solely to the apps essential for their tasks, in line with the principle of least privilege. Once approved, licenses are automatically allocated to the requester, minimizing complications and streamlining IT management. As a result, Zluri's Employee App Store simplifies the JIT access process, enhancing efficiency for both IT teams and employees.

4. Monitor & Audit All Privileged Activity

The monitoring and auditing of privileged activity play a pivotal role in bolstering the security of privileged accounts within an organization. This practice involves vigilant tracking and thorough analysis of actions conducted by users possessing elevated privileges, yielding a range of significant advantages. 

Organizations can establish a comprehensive and real-time understanding of their digital landscape by closely analyzing and systematically documenting every action undertaken by privileged users. This proactive approach serves as a deterrent to potential misuse or unauthorized actions, enabling swift identification of anomalies and suspicious behaviors.

This objective can be achieved by using user IDs in conjunction with auditing and other specialized tools. To effectively identify suspicious activities and promptly investigate potentially risky privileged sessions, implementing privileged session management (PSM) is crucial. 

PSM encompasses vigilant monitoring, meticulous recording, and stringent control of privileged sessions. Comprehensive auditing practices should encompass the capture of keystrokes and screen activities, facilitating real-time viewing and playback. PSM's scope should extend to encompass scenarios where elevated privileges or privileged access are granted to accounts, services, or processes.

Furthermore, the significance of privileged session monitoring and management extends to compliance adherence. Regulations such as SOX, HIPAA, GLBA, PCI DSS, FDCC, FISMA, and others necessitate data protection and security and the capability to substantiate the efficacy of these protective measures.

Zluri streamlines this process as well:-

Zluri equips IT teams with a sophisticated audit log system that meticulously captures and archives all user actions in a secure repository. This invaluable feature facilitates proactive security monitoring and streamlines incident investigations by offering a detailed record of user activities across the organization's digital ecosystem. The IT audit trail becomes a crucial asset in the unfortunate event of a security breach or incident.

It offers a retrospective view of user actions leading up to the incident, facilitating efficient post-incident analysis and investigation. This detailed record aids security experts in understanding the scope and nature of the breach, enabling a faster and more accurate response to mitigate further damage.

Now, conducting compliance audits often entails navigating many rules and regulations. Zluri presents an inclusive platform that consolidates all your compliance-related information into a user-friendly dashboard.

Zluri unifies essential vendor data, including renewals and invoices, within a single dashboard. This facilitates continuous monitoring of vendor practices, ensuring your applications consistently align with industry standards.

Thus, continuous monitoring and auditing create a trail of accountability, ensuring all privileged actions are traceable and attributable to specific individuals. This not only bolsters transparency but also assists in identifying any deviations from established protocols or access norms. 

Moreover, comprehensive auditing facilitates rapid incident response by providing a detailed record of activities, helping security teams pinpoint the source of any breach or security compromise.

5. Conduct Regular Access Reviews 

Conducting regular access reviews plays a pivotal role in fortifying the security of privileged access within your organization. These reviews are a proactive measure that enables the identification and rectification of potential vulnerabilities and unauthorized access points. First, it ensures that only authorized personnel have access to sensitive systems and data. This reduces the risk of internal breaches and malicious activities carried out by insiders.

Second, access reviews help identify and remove any dormant or unnecessary privileged accounts that might serve as entry points for external attackers. By closing these potential avenues, organizations enhance their defense against cyber threats. Further, regular reviews align access privileges with actual job responsibilities, adhering to the principle of least privilege. This restricts users from accessing resources beyond their necessary scope, minimizing the impact of a breach.

Many regulatory frameworks require organizations to regularly review and audit user access. Conducting thorough access reviews ensures compliance with these regulations, avoiding potential fines and legal consequences. Thus, it helps prevent unauthorized modifications or deletions of critical data, preserving the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive information.

How Zluri Facilitates Regular Access Reviews:

Zluri serves as a powerful ally in conducting regular access reviews, streamlining the process, and enhancing the security of privileged access. With its advanced features, Zluri enables organizations to comprehensively manage and optimize access privileges. Here's how Zluri contributes to efficient and effective access reviews:-

• Centralized Access Directory: Zluri provides a centralized hub where all user access information is consolidated. This makes it convenient for IT teams to oversee and manage access privileges across various systems and applications.

• Granular Access Control: Zluri empowers IT teams to define and monitor user roles, contextual information, and access privileges in detail. This level of control ensures that users have precisely the access they require, reducing the risk of unauthorized access.

• Automated Reviews: Zluri offers automated access certification capabilities that significantly expedite the review process. Zluri's intelligent automation assesses user access permissions based on predefined parameters, policies, and regulations, eliminating the necessity for manual spreadsheet reviews. This not only saves time but also reduces the likelihood of errors. 
  
  Beyond access reviews, Zluri goes a step further by providing auto-remediation features that automatically rectify access breaches upon detection. This feature reduces manual effort, saving time and resources while enhancing accuracy. It bolsters your organization's security measures and effortlessly upholds compliance standards.

• Scheduled Certifications: With Zluri, organizations can proactively schedule access certifications. This helps ensure access permissions remain up-to-date and aligned with changing roles and responsibilities.

  

  

• Alerts for Anomalies: Zluri's alerting system promptly notifies administrators of unusual access patterns or potential security breaches. Zluri continuously assesses real-time access patterns, user actions, and system logs to swiftly detect any unusual or potentially hazardous activities. 

  

  

  This proactive strategy effectively mitigates security risks, promptly notifying you of anomalies, fortifying your organization's security measures and minimizing the potential consequences of breaches.

• Actionable Insights: Zluri's real-time reporting and dashboards provide actionable insights into access reviews. These insights aid decision-making and help organizations identify areas for improvement.

• Stay auto-compliant: Zluri's AI-driven compliance features offer intelligent insights and suggestions, guaranteeing that your access controls remain in harmony with industry regulations and benchmarks. By harnessing the power of AI, Zluri simplifies the compliance journey, empowering your organization to seamlessly meet regulatory obligations with precision.

  

  

• Compliance Adherence: Zluri's capabilities align with regulatory requirements by providing a comprehensive record of access reviews, enhancing compliance reporting, and minimizing regulatory risks.
  
   Thus, Zluri streamlines the process of conducting regular access reviews, enabling organizations to efficiently manage privileged access while minimizing security risks.

Securing Privileged Access With Zluri

In the swiftly evolving world of cybersecurity, ensuring privileged access security is of utmost importance. Zluri's comprehensive suite of features empowers your team to proactively manage, monitor, and optimize privileged access. Thus reducing risks, enhancing compliance, and fortifying your digital environment. By embracing Zluri's advanced capabilities, you can confidently navigate the complexities of privileged access security. 

Take the first step towards enhanced protection – book a demo with Zluri today and start a journey towards securing your organization's privileged access.

About the author

Rohit Rao

Rohit works in the Community and Marketing Team of Zluri and is a strong advocate of community led growth.