Privileged entitlements management is the practice of securely managing high-risk entitlements (also known as permissions, access rights or privileges) to access sensitive data, resources and services. Much like other emerging elements of identity security, privileged entitlements management is particularly associated with cloud identity and access management (IAM).
Leading cloud service providers like AWS, Azure and GCP allow any IAM user, group or role to be assigned permissions that allow users, applications, or systems to perform critical or high-risk actions. Examples include modifying configurations, accessing sensitive data (even with read-only roles), or managing IAM entitlements for other users. This elevated access makes privileged entitlements a prime target for attackers.
Why is privileged entitlements management important?
As organizations increasingly adopt cloud platforms, they continue to rely on IAM systems to define and manage access controls. However, mismanagement of entitlements can expose organizations to severe risks, including:
- Data breaches due to unauthorized access
- Regulatory non-compliance, which can lead to hefty fines and reputational damage
- Operational disruptions, especially when attackers exploit entitlements to alter critical infrastructure
Attackers frequently target privileged accounts and user entitlements, as these provide direct access to sensitive data or control over vital cloud infrastructure.
Privileged entitlements management enables businesses to address these risks by:
- Enabling continuous oversight and governance of privileged access.
- Enforcing controls natively.
- Ensuring continuous audit of privileged actions.
- Limiting the exposure of high-risk entitlements.
By leveraging a privileged entitlements management system, organizations can:
- Strengthen their security posture.
- Reduce the risk of insider threats and malicious actors.
- Ensure compliance with industry standards and regulations.
Where does PEM fit within a privileged access management program?
Organizations must implement robust and scalable PAM programs to safeguard the highest-risk access in an organization – no matter where it lives. Effective programs are continuous, encompassing ongoing discovery of roles and accounts, securing privileged access within IT workflows, and producing comprehensive audits and reporting to allow for ongoing risk reduction.
Privileged entitlements should be treated with the same considerations as privileged accounts in more traditional environments. Namely, organizations should aim to:
- Discover privileged entitlements and understand the risks that they pose.
- Implementing least privilege access to limit lateral movement, privilege misuse and privilege escalation.
- Assigning valid permissions with careful guardrails, ideally on a just-in-time (JIT) basis with Zero Standing Privileges (ZSP).
- Secure sessions launched with privileged entitlements, through isolation between workstations and target workloads (such as virtual machines or databases).
- Audit sessions to assist security forensics, improve observability and provide clear trail for regulatory compliance.
- Monitor sessions to detect potential misuse of privileged entitlements and respond.
An emerging best practice is to carefully restrict not only the authorization of personnel and systems to use these entitlements, but also to carefully restrict the Time, Entitlements and Approvals (TEA) settings governing privileged sessions in the cloud.
How does PEM differ from cloud infrastructure entitlements management?
Although privileged entitlements management and cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM) share similarities, they have distinct focuses.
- CIEM emphasizes rightsizing and optimizing cloud permissions. Key capabilities include:
- Visualization of fine-grained entitlements in multi-cloud environments
- Right-sizing of excessive permissions assigned to human and machine identities
- Identification of identity-related misconfigurations or other vulnerabilities within cloud environments
- PEM, on the other hand, zeroes in on the management of privileged entitlements – not only in the cloud but also in on-premises environments specifically. In addition to rightsizing, PEM places a strong emphasis on:
- Implementing strict controls over who can access critical entitlements, in alignment with the rule of least privilege
- Enforcing best practices like implementation of Zero Standing Privileges, with careful consideration of the time, entitlements and approval settings governing a privileged session
- Simplifying end user experience for use of privileged entitlements, with attribute-based authorization checks and native application of privilege controls
- Facilitating audit of high-risk sessions utilizing privileged entitlements, as well as certification of privileged access
Privileged entitlements management is a crucial aspect of modern cloud security strategies. By safeguarding high-risk entitlements, PEM ensures that privileged access is tightly controlled and monitored, mitigating the risks of access exploitation and improving organizational resilience in an ever-evolving cloud threat landscape.
