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Privilege, in an Information Technology context, can be defined as the authority a given account or process has within a computing system or network. It provides the authorisation to override, or bypass, certain security restraints, and may include permissions to perform such actions as shutting down systems, loading device drivers, configuring networks or systems, provisioning and configuring accounts and cloud instances, etc.

Management of these privileges through the use of Cybersecurity strategies and technologies to exert control over the elevated (“privileged”) access and permissions for users, accounts, processes, and systems across an IT environment can be called as Privileged Access Management (PAM). Enforcing certain level of privileged access controls can help an enterprise to condense their organisation’s attack surface, and prevent, or at least mitigate, the damage arising from external attacks as well as from insider malfeasance or negligence.

The domain of privilege management is generally accepted as falling within the larger scope of Identity and Access Management (IAM). Together, PAM and IAM help to provide fined-grained control, visibility, and auditability over all the credentials and privileges.

Additionally, many compliance regulations (including HIPAA, PCI DSS, FDDC, SAMA, SIA (NESA), FISMA, and SOX) necessitate that organisations apply least privilege access policies to ensure responsible data stewardship and systems security.

Privileged Accounts Commonly in Use Across an Organisation

Local administrative accounts
Non-personal accounts providing administrative access to the local host or instance only.
Domain administrative accounts
Privileged administrative access across all workstations and servers within the domain.
Break glass (also called emergency or firecall) accounts
Unprivileged users with administrative access to secure systems in the case of an emergency.
Service accounts
Privileged local or domain accounts that are used by an application or service to interact with the operating system.
Active Directory or domain service accounts
Enable password changes to accounts, etc.
Application accounts
Used by applications to access databases, run batch jobs or scripts, or provide access to other applications.

Benefits of Privileged Access Management

Privileged Access Management (PAM) not only minimises the potential for a security breach occurring, but it also helps limit the scope of a breach should one occur. One of the key advantages that PAM has over other types of security technologies is its ability to dismantle multiple points of the cyberattack chain, providing protection against both external attacks as well as attacks that make it within networks and systems.

PAM confers many benefits, including:

A condensed attack surface protects against both internal and external threats
Curbing privileges for people, processes, and applications means the paths and openings for exploit are also diminished.
Reduced malware infection and propagation
Many varieties of malware (such as SQL injections, rely on lack of least privilege) need elevated privileges to install or execute. Eliminating excessive privileges, such as through least privilege enforcement across the enterprise, can prevent malware from gaining a foothold, or reduce its spread if it does.
Enhanced operational performance
Restricting privileges to the minimal range of processes to perform an authorised activity reduces the chance of incompatibility issues between applications or systems and helps reduce the risk of downtime.
Easier to achieve and prove compliance
By controlling the privileged activities that can possibly be performed, Privileged Access Management helps create a less complex, and thus, a more audit-friendly, environment.

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