The Ultimate Guide to Managing User Privileges
Managing user privileges is a key part of keeping your business safe from cyber-attacks and ensuring that you have the best possible security for sensitive information. And yet, so many organisations don’t have a clear approach when it comes to minimising risk in this way. The more users with elevated privileges, the higher the risk to the business - especially if those accounts aren’t properly monitored or the privileges are not necessarily required.
What are user privileges?
These are the non-standard user accounts that go beyond having a password to access simple systems. Instead, privileged user accounts provide a much higher level of access to enterprise systems and sensitive data, usually on the basis of permissions. Privileged user accounts, for example, might grant someone access to make changes to IT infrastructure, reset passwords for others or install hardware or software. In most organisations, someone with user privileges will have two separate accounts - one for standard access and the other to carry out specific tasks that require greater access.
Privileged users and service accounts
It’s important to remember when managing user privileges that there are two key accounts to focus on, privileged user accounts (which relate to a person who is responsible for them) and privileged accounts. The latter is arguably the most vulnerable accounts because there is no individual user directly responsible for those accounts (also called ‘service accounts’), but they provide a way to gain direct access to key facilities, such as Windows applications or firewalls and routers. That’s why any business focused on managing user privileges needs to take both of these different types of account into consideration.
How does privileged access management work?
Privilege access management is a system for controlling the access that users have to protected resources across an IT environment by creating, storing and managing privileged credentials. This is a way to manage user privileges so that you have control over all types of privileged accounts throughout their lifecycle and can add layers of oversight at any time, from session monitoring to recording. Proactive management of user privileges is vital in any organisation to help avoid a situation where there are privileged user accounts that still allow access to critical data and systems but which are either unmonitored or unused (for example they belonged to an ex-employee). Threats to an organisation can originate from outside, such as a hacker or cyber attack, as well as inside the enterprise. According to one Verizon report, around a third of breaches were initiated by an insider threat and 33% relate to privilege misuse. There are a number of key steps that are necessary for effective privilege access management, including training, policy-based controls, proactive oversight, automated governance and least privilege policies.
User privileges are a crucial part of any enterprise today but they should be carefully managed. It’s vital for any organisation to understand the risks that can come from privileged user accounts and to have effective safeguards in place to ensure both security and productivity.