Cyber resilience depends heavily on robust identity security. Privilege controls are becoming a priority since there are so many more machine identities to manage today. It’s estimated that machine identities now outnumber human identities by a ratio of 45 to 1. The situation has expanded in the last few years, growing exponentially due to work-from-home scenarios that have played out since the onset of the pandemic. Many companies have started developing stronger policies around privilege controls.
Harnessing Control
There are a variety of solutions to consider with intelligent privilege controls. Five of the most commonly used approaches include the following:
- Managing Credentials – Something as simple as a username and password suffice as valid evidence of identity. Most organizations already stress the importance of password hygiene in their policies, so using credential management for privilege control is a fairly organic step toward improved identity security.
- JIT Access – Just-in-time (JIT) access can be the approach for extending specific access to various users. But the privilege is only temporary. Instead of gaining blanket access for any duration, JIT can be used to grant short-term privileges so the user can handle what needs to be done, then access is removed.
- Delegation – While some members, such as security managers or team leaders, have access to the most sensitive information, they can also identify the few others who can be granted similar access, but only to specific information. They delegate their authority to elevate privileges based on specific tasks.
- Isolating Information – Proxy servers are a perfect piece of technology for routing traffic in a way that will not give hackers access to data. The user’s device is isolated from the data by the proxy server.
- Session Monitoring – Tracking traffic is a way to flag suspicious activity. Through session monitoring, every action is recorded down to each individual click, providing information about anything happening in everything from web applications to cloud consoles.
Organizations are right to assume that at some point they will experience a breach, which is why so many have set up a strategy for how to deal with it. But it’s also important to be proactive, which is what privilege controls aim to provide. Identity security strategies are important but implementing the right solutions can be difficult, which is why outsourcing to a professional can help.
At Safari Solutions, our mission is to assist our clients with all of their IT needs and we can certainly help with privilege control. Contact us and let’s discuss how we can identify the technology that keeps all of your data safe.
