The top is down on my convertible and I hear "I am he as you are he as we are all together. See how they run..." blasting on the radio and what do I think of? Yep, privilege identity management.
So we've established that I'm obsessed with least privilege, but somehow "I am the walrus" became "I am the ostrich" and I pondered why the typical admin prefers to duck and cover when auditors or business executives come to gripe about why there are no controls on who can do what (auditors) or why everything is so locked down that work can't be done at all, let alone efficiently (business executives).
Q: Why did the ostrich stick his head in the sand?
A: To avoid danger (actually lowering its head in high grass instead of self burial in sand).
Just avoiding the inevitable is never a good policy else you should just drop out, drop acid and listen to Beatles records all day (ipod with earbuds for those with more current means). For those admins looking to achieve the IT equivalent of Karmic Balance, then implementing a privilege identity management solution across desktops, servers, virtual and cloud environments should be the next project on your to-do list. By implementing a least privilegesolution you will automatically facilitate the elevation (brokering) of admin privileges only when they are necessary in an audit-able fashion that doesn't require handing out root or admin credentials.
Scott Lang, Sr. Director, Product Marketing at BeyondTrust
Scott Lang has nearly 20 years of experience in technology product marketing, currently guiding the product marketing strategy for BeyondTrust’s privileged account management solutions and vulnerability management solutions. Prior to joining BeyondTrust, Scott was director of security solution marketing at Dell, formerly Quest Software, where he was responsible for global security campaigns, product marketing for identity and access management and Windows server management.