The primary purpose of a PAW is to minimize the risk of security breaches, especially those stemming from credential theft or privilege misuse targeting sensitive accounts. PAWs are often used by IT administrators, security professionals, and other users who need to perform privileged tasks. PAWs can also be used to provide remote access to privileged systems, which can help to reduce the risk of exposure.
Authorized users are allowed to use PAWs to gain administrative access to privileged accounts through a privileged access management tool that manages and governs access to business-critical endpoints.
PAWs are dedicated machines that are hardened using a layered approach to offer the highest security to privileged accounts and resources. They are typically configured with several security controls, including, but not limited to:
Only a predefined set of applications and commands are allowed to run on a PAW. This helps to reduce the attack surface by restricting these environments to select users.
PAWs are typically isolated from the rest of the network, which makes it more difficult for attackers to reach them.
Users must utilize MFA before gaining access to a PAW.
PAWs are configured with security best practices, such as keeping software up-to-date and disabling unnecessary services.
Since PAWs are specifically used for privileged access activities, these endpoints cannot be used for general user activities, such as internet browsing, emails, team collaborations, and other application usage. Further, PAWs incorporate application allow-listing and other forms of administrative restrictions, which means they will not accept connections from external networks or devices. All these aforementioned controls are offered by PAM solutions.
When a machine in a network, such as a client, attempts to establish a connection with another machine, the client will request to verify the machine identity of the device or workload it is attempting to connect to.
The process through which one machine, be it a device or a workload, validates another's identity is called machine-to-machine authentication.
Enforcing strict policies while configuring machine-to-machine authentication is highly recommended while practicing machine identity management.
Following are top controls that a PAM software should provide to enable PAW users.
Add an extra layer of security by mandating multiple levels and modes of authentication.
Automatically discover, onboard, manage, and share privileged accounts and credentials pertaining to different types of endpoints, such as operating systems, databases, applications, network devices, hypervisors, and more. Enforce granular access controls, allowing only authorized users to log in and perform specific privileged tasks.
Monitor, record, and archive privileged sessions. Audit these sessions in real-time to aid in forensic audits, and terminate sessions automatically as or when users are found to be engaging in malicious activities.
Employ the principle of least privilege, where users are granted access to mission-sensitive resources and accounts based on their roles and requirements.
Provide users with time-limited, elevated access to privileged endpoints based on their requirements. This a critical module in PAM software, which includes revoking privileges and rotating the passwords of sensitive endpoints after every use.
Enable secure, one-click access from PAWs to remote endpoints, thereby ensuring that administrative users can access business-critical systems from external locations without compromising security.
Enforce password policies based on internal security requirements, and provide reporting capabilities to demonstrate compliance with industry regulations and internal policies.
Enable users to run allow-listed applications and commands with varying levels of privileges to reduce the risk of malicious software execution.
Continuously monitor users and devices based on numerous security parameters to derive trust scores. Use these scores to automatically generate access policies based on their security posture. Leverage behavioral analytics and ML to identify unusual patterns of behavior, and proactively isolate threat actors.