BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux - Cloud Innovation for Critical Linux Endpoint Security

Today, BeyondTrust unveils its latest Linux security innovations in Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux, now available for SaaS deployment.

Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux is a best-in-class, enterprise-grade privilege elevation and delegation management (PEDM) solution that enables customers to control root access, streamline compliance with advanced auditing, enforce least privilege, and centrally manage zero trust security controls for their Linux servers and workstations. Purpose-built for Linux, our solution empowers customers to extend their capabilities far beyond sudo with centralized event logging, session monitoring, and management, as well as child process control.

Now offered via SaaS, Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux deploys quickly with no on-premises servers or controllers required, empowering you to scale quickly, maintain flexibility, reduce total cost of ownership, and deploy to your Linux servers in the cloud without opening holes in your firewall.

This blog explores the dynamic Linux threat landscape, addresses the problems that organizations often face in managing and securing their Linux systems, identifies the limitations of open-source tools like sudo, and shows how Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux can replace sudo to provide robust Linux endpoint security.

Why is Linux security important?

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Linux servers are the backbone of essential services, the custodians of sensitive data, and the driving force behind business-critical operations, spanning on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments. As many organizations shift their workloads to the cloud, their reliance on Linux expands, resulting in a proliferation of Linux servers deployed in containers or as virtual machines. A significant portion of those Linux servers remain unprotected, however, due to lack of visibility, misconfiguration, or missing privilege controls and auditing creating vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit to gain unauthorized access to critical systems and sensitive data.

Top external threats to Linux systems

Once considered inherently secure, Linux has become an increasingly attractive target for attackers due to their business-critical nature. Servers are the most common endpoint type that threat actors targeted in 2023, with more than 80% of breaches affecting at least one server, according to a Verizon report. Additionally, a recent Trend Micro report revealed a 62% surge in Linux ransomware attacks from 2022 to 2023, demonstrating the increased focus that threat actors are placing on Linux and the importance of maintaining a strong least privilege security posture for your Linux systems.

Top internal threats to Linux systems

External attackers aren’t the only source of threat you need to have on your radar, though. Internal threats can pose just as much risk for your organization. Insiders accounted for 19% of data breaches in 2023, according to the same Verizon report.

Internal threats can be divided into three groups:

1. Malicious insiders - those that purposefully want to hurt the organization.
2. Human error - insiders that make negligent or inadvertent mistakes, thereby jeopardizing critical services, systems, and data. This threat vector can be often overlooked by organizations, but research shows that insiders are twice as likely to harm the organization through inadvertent mistakes than through malicious actions.
3. External attackers that use stolen credentials to gain unauthorized access - the third group that make up insider threats aren’t actually insiders at all. Since logging in is easier than hacking in, the use of stolen credentials is increasing, resulting in external attackers becoming insider threats. The total average cost of insider threat incidents in a year for a single organization rose from $8.3 million in 2018 to $16.2 million in 2023, according to the Ponemon Institute and DTEX’s Cost of Insider Risks report.

This might leave you wondering what you can do to safeguard your Linux estate against these external and internal risks. The most fundamental step you can take is to implement least privilege by controlling root access, as well as maintaining fine-grained visibility of the privileged activity performed by your users. Enacting these practices in your organization can be easier said than done, though—especially if you don’t have the right solution in place to do so.

Linux security: problems and inadequate solutions

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Organizations often face many challenges when managing and securing their Linux estates. Over the course of thousands of engagements, we’ve identified three critical problems that nearly all organizations with Linux deployments face:

1. Controlling root access: When an organization grants its Linux users unrestricted access to root, it creates a critical vulnerability that can be exploited by attackers, both internal and external. Maintaining fine-grained control of root access can be difficult, however, especially as Linux deployments become more complex.
2. Achieving compliance: Many organizations must adhere to regulatory frameworks such as NIST CSF, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, among others. An essential aspect of compliance involves responding to audits with records detailing all privileged activity on Linux servers. Without the right solution in place, gathering those records can be a resource-intensive, manual process for IT, security, and compliance teams.
3. Maintaining fine-grained visibility: Organizations often have limited visibility into the privileged activity their users are executing on their business-critical Linux servers. This presents many problems, including limited ability to identify suspicious activity, lack of visibility and tracking of changes made to critical endpoints, and restricted ability to conduct forensic investigations.

Many organizations use open-source tools like sudo to manage privileged access for their Linux estates. While sudo can offer some degree of privileged access management, it’s not remotely adequate for addressing the granular privilege management and audit requirements that modern enterprise Linux deployments demand. Utilizing sudo to manage root access can be a cumbersome, manually intensive process for IT and security teams, only growing in difficulty as the organization’s deployment becomes larger and more complex.

Third party solutions are required to enable centralized administration, further adding to the complexity. Sudo offers very little auditing functionality, with no guarantee of immutability or support for session recording, presenting potential compliance issues and a lack of fine-grained visibility. It also has inherent security flaws; no matter how an organization patches sudo, their users will still be able to shell out and gain root access if they’re crafty enough. Sudo’s many shortcomings make it an inadequate privilege management solution for most organizations.

Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux is the best-in-class solution for securing your Linux estate

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BeyondTrust has been a Linux security pioneer, starting with Linux security solutions developed by engineers and top data scientists at MIT and the US Department of Defense. We’re now unveiling our newest Linux security innovations in the latest update to our award-winning solution: Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux.

Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux, now available for SaaS deployment, is a privilege management solution purpose-built for Linux that enables customers to control root access, streamline compliance with advanced auditing, enforce least privilege, and centrally manage zero trust security controls for their Linux servers and workstations across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments. Capabilities extend far beyond sudo, with centralized event logging, optional session recording, and management. Offered for SaaS deployment, Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux deploys simply and can scale quickly with no on-premises servers and controllers required.

Key outcomes you can expect from Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux

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Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux enables customers to attain the following outcomes:

• Replace sudo: Strengthen security and simplify management of your Linux estate by replacing sudo with a centralized, enterprise-grade, and purpose-built solution.
• Centrally control root access: Control root access and eliminate risky security practices like credential sharing, inconsistent manual processes, and excessive rights by dynamically elevating privileges for standard users.
• Simplified compliance: Ensure compliance with increasingly complex regulatory frameworks and qualify for cyber insurance by providing an unimpeachable audit trail of all privileged user activity, including optional session recordings.
• Maintain detailed visibility: Gain full centralized visibility into all privileged user activity, including full session recordings, so you can track changes to critical endpoints and improve incident response times.
• Reduced attack surface: Protect against both external and internal threats by controlling root access, enforcing least privilege, limiting the risk of unwanted lateral movement, and preventing unauthorized execution of malicious code.
• Improve operational efficiency: Streamline management and operations and enhance user productivity by simplifying processes that can be complex with sudo or custom tools.
• Streamlined deployment and management: Deploy quickly with no on-premises servers or controllers required, maintain flexibility and reduce total cost of ownership, and deploy to your Linux servers in the cloud without opening holes in your firewall.

Key features of Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux

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Key features of Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux include:

• Fine-grained least privilege: Control root access and dynamically elevate privileges for standard users through fine-grained, policy-based controls, replacing sudo and eliminating the need for root sessions.
• Powerful auditing for streamlined compliance: Centralize the capture and management of event logging, including logs of privilege elevation events and full session recordings. Logs are centrally stored in a protected, immutable archive.
• Role-based policy controls: Address your core security gaps quickly with lightweight, easy to implement role-based policies that can be created on a who, what, where, and when basis.
• Centralized management: Centralize the management of your Linux estate, including all user activity data, policies, upgrades, updates, and deployments.
• Advanced control & audit: Control and audit file system activity, targeting specific system-level calls (e.g. open/read/write/exec) and define whether each action can be performed on a file and specify audit level.
• Integrations & scalability: Integrate with your other systems and tools such as SIEM, Elasticsearch, or BeyondTrust Active Directory Bridge to extend authentication across your hybrid environment.

How to get started with Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux

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Visit our website for more information or to request a demo of BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux. For existing customers seeking more information on updating to the latest version of Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux, click here.