For cybercriminals, the biggest breeding ground is access to so-called critical IT resources. Business applications, databases or other information present in an organization's virtual space can be stolen and exploited. The risk increases if you don't ensure efficient management of privileged accounts. For this reason, it's worth using a PAM system in your protection strategy. Mistakes in the identity management system can cost a lot, and they happen all too often. What kind of shortcomings are we talking about?
What is the PAM system?
PAM (Privileged Access Management). is nothing more than privileged account management. The goals are to monitor and control access to the company's most sensitive and strategic resources.
In practice, PAM boils down to implementing tools for managing sessions, passwords or granting employees access to specific applications. Unfortunately, the use of an identity management system is not free of mistakes. It is worth being aware of them, so as not to unintentionally harm your own organization.
What to watch out for in managing privileged accounts?
Some practices used by IT environments in large organizations can increase the risk of attack by cybercriminals despite the implementation of Privileged Access Management. After all, it is not enough to know what a PAM system is. The key to successful protection is its tightness. Here are some mistakes that can encourage virtual criminals to act.
Invalid SSL certificate
It is through this certificate that encryption, authentication, but at the same time decryption of information circulating online is possible. The idea is to use a secure connection on the web server-browser line. The certification mark is an active https:// protocol, which prevents malicious programs from penetrating the organization's IT environment.
Unauthenticated domain
The identity management system is intended to support the IT team's activities in managing the data of the network end user. We are talking about authorizing his data or granting access to specific resources. PAM identifies the user's domain and, as a result, provides the desired access to the system.
No multi-component authentication
This type of authentication, known as MFA for short, is a way to manage employee access and identity at a basic level. Verification of personal data should take place at every stage of a request for access to a resource. Multi-layered security automatically reduces the risk of malware infiltrating internal IT structures.
It is important to remember that the imagination of hackers does not slow down, and neither does the development of cybersecurity technology. In order to decode passwords, they use a number of modern tools, but also psychological procedures. A single, solitary layer of antivirus security will therefore be a cinch for them.