The problem
In many organizations the most powerful accounts are also the least controlled. Domain administrator, database and firewall passwords are shared between team members, written in spreadsheets, rarely changed and given to outside vendors for support. Nobody can say with confidence who used them, or when.
Why it matters
- Attackers aim for them. Most serious intrusions involve stealing or abusing privileged credentials to move from one machine to the whole network.
- Insiders and leavers. A shared password that is never rotated still works for the person who left last year.
- Auditors and regulators ask. Who has privileged access, how it is approved, and how it is reviewed are standard questions in security audits.
What good looks like
- Privileged passwords stored in a vault and rotated automatically, so people never need to know them.
- Access granted just in time, for a specific task, with approval where the risk is high.
- Privileged sessions recorded, so you can see exactly what was done, including by vendors.
- Regular reviews of who holds privileged and ordinary access, with leavers removed promptly.
Where to start
Start with an inventory of privileged accounts across servers, databases, network devices and cloud consoles, then bring the most critical ones under a vault first. Our identity assistant will tell you whether privileged access management, identity governance or passwordless identity is the best first step for your situation.