Privileged accounts are one of the largest cybersecurity threats to any organization. These powerful accounts contain the rights to perform administrative, maintenance, and other key system tasks across a network. These accounts can be accessed by multiple technicians in any given day, for regular maintenance or an urgent task. And for busy IT departments under pressure to keep things running smoothly, security is sometimes overlooked for productivity.
Projects to secure privileged access often leave out groups with admin credentials, such as help desk personnel who typically have local admin access to all employee computers. Or they fail to consider non-traditional privileged accounts, such as logins to social media. These may not be “admin” accounts, but if someone nefarious hacks into your company’s Twitter account, your brand could suffer significant damage.
Part of this struggle for many organizations is not knowing where all of these accounts are. So if you can’t identify all of your privileged accounts, it’s an even bigger challenge to secure them.
As more companies move resources to the cloud, they’re struggling with privileged access management for cloud infrastructure such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Azure. Infrastructure-As-A-Service (IaaS) is yet another area of privileged access management that companies need to address in their overall strategy.
Check out this webinar for more insight into shoring up your security posture, including more robust solutions for managing and securing vendor or third-party access, the ultimately and avoid the pitfalls of privileged access.
Sam Elliott, SVP, Products
Sam Elliott is the Senior Vice President of Products at BeyondTrust, where he oversees the company’s solution portfolio. Leading with an identity security first approach, he drives product innovation and integration strategies across the broader security ecosystem. A technology veteran of over 18 years, Elliott’s focus is in privileged access management, remote access security, and SaaS strategies. He has helped build successful, cloud-first, startups and held product leadership roles across core technology industries, including Cyber Security, IT Asset Management, and IT Service Management. Elliott earned his Bachelor of Science from Florida State University.
