In a world where privileged credentials are stolen in an estimated 74% of security breaches, deploying a Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution is one of the most important steps businesses can take to secure their IT assets.

Privileged accounts grant unique account privileges to certain end-users with elevated rights to execute key business operations such as accessing private company information, resetting user passwords, and implementing changes to IT infrastructure systems. However, if these accounts are compromised, the organization may face major consequences.

Organizations can use a strong PAM solution to ensure that individuals who require privileged access receive it while protecting vital business systems from devastating assaults. But before all, what is a PAM solution?

Privileged Access and PAM

 In a corporate environment, “privileged access” refers to special rights or ‘entitlements’ that go above and beyond a typical user. Privileged access enables enterprises to secure their network and apps, conduct their businesses efficiently, and protect sensitive data and key infrastructure.

Privileged access can be assigned to human and non-human users, such as applications and machine identities. Privileged accounts, credentials, and secrets abound: it is claimed that they outnumber employees three to four times over.

 The privilege-related security risk in current business environments is rapidly expanding as systems, apps, machine-to-machine accounts, cloud, hybrid environments, DevOps, robotic process automation, and IoT devices become increasingly interconnected.

Today, nearly all advanced assaults rely on privileged credentials to access a target’s most sensitive data, services, and infrastructure. Privilege access has the potential to disrupt a company if it is misused.

Endpoint compromise and privileged credentials are virtually usually the cause of data leaks. As a result, monitoring and protecting privileged accounts has become critical. Endpoint least privilege security is crucial, as local administrator rights are a prime target for cyber thieves.

Solutions that safeguard both endpoints and privileged credentials must be in place to protect sensitive data. That’s when PAM comes to the rescue. Privileged access management (PAM) is used by organizations to protect against the hazards posed by credential theft and privilege access abuse.

PAM is a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy that includes people, procedures, and technology to govern, monitor, secure, and audit all human and non-human privileged identities and actions in an organizational IT environment.

How does PAM protect your real-time data?

 Unmanaged and unmonitored accounts expose your organization to a slew of privileged dangers, whether by design or accident. Humans are considered as the weak link in the cybersecurity chain, whether they are internal privileged users exploiting their degree of access or foreign cyber attackers aiming and hijacking privileges from users to operate discreetly as “privileged insiders.”

Privileged access management assists organizations in ensuring that employees only have the access they need to execute their tasks. PAM also enables security teams to detect harmful actions associated with privilege abuse and quickly mitigate risk.

# PAM is critical for achieving compliance

 The capacity to observe and detect suspicious occurrences in an environment is critical; yet, without a clear emphasis on what poses the most risk – unmanaged, unmonitored, and unsecured privileged access – the organization will remain exposed.

Incorporating PAM as agile security and risk management strategy helps firms capture and track all key IT infrastructure and sensitive data, simplifying audit and compliance obligations.

# PAM restrains credential sharing

 Numerous people inside the organization share many administrator accounts, and for convenience, they frequently use the same password across multiple systems.

These techniques can make determining which actions were performed by specific personnel hard, raising a company’s security risk and exposing a lack of compliance with regulatory obligations.

PAM can assist organizations in mitigating these risks by requiring each individual to utilize a unique login. PAM solutions may additionally demand strong passwords, which must be changed regularly depending on the account’s level of sensitivity.

Administrators can also use PAM to deploy single sign-on (SSO) authentication to hide credentials from users and ensure effectiveness each time they access critical assets.

# Review risky behavior notifications in real-time

 Many PAM solutions provide administrators with real-time email and text warnings that alert them to potentially dangerous or suspicious behavior.

They can create alert settings to receive messages whenever a privileged user accesses certain data or systems, when potential policy breaches occur, or when hazards such as too many allocated privileges to specific accounts are highlighted. Administrators can swiftly make modifications to maintain a high degree of security by analyzing notifications in real-time.

#  Integrate with access management systems

 In recent times, Leading PAM systems can integrate with an organization’s larger identity and access management (IAM) system, closing security gaps and eliminating repetitive processes for privileged and non-privileged accounts.

Companies that combine the capability of PAM with identity governance can benefit from automated provisioning and de-provisioning and speedier reporting and auditing throughout their user accounts. As a result, you can save time & the complexity of securing all user identities is reduced.

# ‍PAM secures cloud-forward and hybrid remote access

 Distributed, and even completely remote, workforces are becoming the standard, implying more Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, infrastructure automation tools, and service accounts connecting from different locations.

Companies need something more precise than a VPN to secure cloud access & hybrid environments as these privileged accounts outnumber humans in an organization, where PAM emerges as the solution.

Managing privileged access is a critical component of an organization’s overall identity governance strategy. With a solid PAM solution, businesses can be confident that they are granting privileged access to those who require it while safeguarding their systems from destructive attacks that could collapse the business.

Final Thoughts:

ARCON | PAM is designed to handle expanding use case issues of privileged access by providing IT security with granular controls and implementing least privilege principles in enterprises.

ARCON, a firm trusted by over 1000 worldwide companies, provides solutions to emerging use-cases that ensure business scalability and compliance. So, if you want to invest in PAM solutions, consult an expert to choose the best possible security goal!

Remote access security has become a burning topic lately, thanks to the global pandemic. Security, risk and compliance managers face a new challenge: How to reinforce the security measures as to access control in remote work conditions. While organizations have realized that working remotely is the only way to ensure business continuity, the remote access threats to IT infrastructure have loomed large. 

Remote Access is especially important for organizations that are spread across different geographies. Different geographies falling under different time zones in turn have different challenges. There is an ambiguity about whom to give the privileged access to which system at what time and for what purpose. As a result, cyber risks are increasing exponentially. Malicious insider threats and third-party IT risks pose serious threats.  

Why do cyber risks increase in remote work conditions?

Remote Access has resulted in various emerging scenarios resulting in increased IT complexities. 

Among them, these are predominant: 

• Weak or inadequate access control policies cannot ensure that all the accesses happening in the enterprise IT environment are authorized. Malicious actors misuse this loophole and compromise privileged accounts.

• Absence of robust end-user validation mechanism like Multi-factor authentication fails to identify authorized and genuine users accessing critical systems in the enterprise network. Suspicious and unreliable third-party users remain unidentified because of this.

• Employees access business-critical applications with ‘always-on’ privileges. There is absence of access control framework such as access based only on ‘need-to-know’ and ‘need-to-do’ basis or granular access controls. 

Ensure IT Administrative efficiency

with ARCON | Remote Assist

Read Whitepaper

What could be done?

To get over the IT security risks and challenges in remote work conditions, the global IT security community requires a robust solution that could control and manage every task happening remotely. There is an urgent need for a unified governing engine. A centralized access control framework that could reinforce rule and role-based privileged access control can significantly reduce malicious insider risks. 

To address these emerging challenges, ARCON has developed a robust solution: Global Remote Access (GRA)

This solution ensures a secure enterprise IT environment by reducing the apparently unproductive hours of IT operations like time taken to respond to functional glitches raised by the end-users. Not only that, while permitting users for privileged rights, the hours lost during the transition can be eradicated with the automated GRA tool. Moreover, the privilege elevation happens in a secure manner. It enhances the enterprise IT lifecycle management by managing every possible remote assistance provided to the end-users.

Key Benefits

 Global Remote Access comprises several benefits discussed below: 

• The IT admins can simplify the task of tracking the end-user activities and generate a report of all the remote activities performed on each and every system.

• The IT admins can process a remote session only after an approval and user validation check done by the tool. However, the admins possess the rights to pause or terminate the access rights if any anomaly is suspected. The duration of the elevated rights can be extended if required.

• Any kind of confidential file transfer is always restricted unless the end-users request for it on valid operational ground. It indirectly prevents chances of data loss. Once the process is over, the file access rights are revoked immediately to prevent unnecessary ‘extra-time’ privilege.

• GRA supports generation of video logs of every remote session and thereby helps in session analysis regularly and in audit trails.

• During situation-based requirements, the administrators need not reveal the login credentials to the end-users who are given elevated access rights for any application/ system for a specified time. It helps to follow the principle of least privilege and avoid excessive standing privileges.

• GRA helps IT admins to remotely enable password rotation policy for the end-users frequently. It ensures least intervention and thereby prevents every unauthorized access.

Conclusion 

ARCON Global Remote Access (GRA) solution is an effective solution today for enterprises to manage and control remote users across different geographies. In order to ensure a secured remote connection to their designated desktop or laptop from outside the IT infrastructure, GRA is the best option to prevent the IT risks that arise from Work From Home (WFH) conditions. 

Since the last few years, the incidents of cybercrime have increased quite massively. According to a report, most cybercriminals, these days, are using Cobalt Strike Testing Toolkit to launch the attacks. The same report also suggests that most ransomware assails depend on the Trojan virus. But how does it actually work?

Well, firstly, the commodity Trojan malware programs enter the computer and lower the efficiency of its security system. After that, the ransomware enters the PC and begins stealing crucial information, which, in turn, causes a massive loss for the organization. But, is there any way to stop these attacks and reduce the ever-emerging threat of ransomware?

We will be discussing everything about the ransomware along with the prevention methods here, in this write-up. So, make sure to go through it properly.

What is Ransomware and How Does It Work?

Ransomware, in short, is a type of malware, which encrypts the files of an individual or a system. Once the encryption procedure is done, the attacker will stipulate a ransom from the victim. Otherwise, he/she will not restore access to the data or system that they have hacked.

A ransomware program is usually deployed through a vector module. It helps them in accessing the internal storage of a system. The most common delivery procedure of the same is phishing spam. It generally masquerades as a trustable file or source on the email of the victim.

Once you download it, the file will take over your system and block a particular section. Some ransomware programs also come with an in-built social engineering module, which will trick you to provide administrative access to it.

However, if you want, then you can prevent the cyberattack from occurring by implementing PAM (privileged access management) on your system. It, in turn, will help you to track your privileged accounts or files and notify you about the anomalies right away.

The Highlights of the Dominance of Ransomware

The dominance of ransomware programs was largely prevalent in the year 2019. According to a report, the access management-based security measurements from different organizations detected more than 68,000 new ransomware. It also suggested that the variants of new ransomware grew by 46% in the same year.

So, here, we are going to discuss a little bit more about the highlights of the supremacy of ransomware in recent years.

1. The Ascendancy of Cryptominers: In truth, the hype regarding crypto mining declined somewhat massively in 2019. However, that did not stop the Cryptominers from unleashing ransomware. As per a study, around 38% of organizations globally were affected by the Cryptominers. The prime reason behind such emergence is the high-reward, low-risk nature of these programs.
2. The Number of Targeted Ransomware is on the Rise: During the first half of 2019, the city administrations of the USA were affected by targeted ransomware. And, since then, the number or application of the same has grown quite massively. As the hackers generally choose their targets pretty carefully, then programs tend to deal a lot of damage than the randomly-unleashed ransomware.
3. Emergence in Cloud Attacks: A recent study has revealed that around 85% of organizations globally are using cloud-based services for their purpose. However, the security of the same has not been bolstered enough. Thus, many hackers, these days, are targeting the cloud storage of an organization with their promoted ransomware modules. The number of cloud attacks has increased massively in 2019 and is expected to grow even more in 2020.
4. The Surge of Botnet Army: Aside from all these, the overall activity of the botnets are increasing as well. Around 28% of companies worldwide had to deal with them in the year 2019. In most cases, the cybercriminals used Emotet as the required malware program due to its spam distribution feature.

Key Trends regarding the Ransomware Attacks

In 2019, some trends of ransomware attacks became quite prevalent. Let’s take a look at them.

• The most ransomware-attacked regions in the world were – North America, the Middle East, and South Asia.
• The leakage of revenue through cyberattacks has been quite prominent in the year 2019 as well.
• The most attacked category among the different security aspects of the organizations were surveillance cameras. However, it can be averted through the usage of an identity and access management
• The prices of malware programs (especially those used in ransomware) have increased at a higher rate during the last half of 2019.
• A massive increase in reconnaissance attacks has also been recorded on critically-stabilized infrastructures.
• The outbound attacks from China in India increased in 2019 as well.

How to Protect Your Company from Ransomware Attacks?

So, as of now, you probably do have a clear idea about the massive damage that a ransomware program can cause. But how are you going to avert those? Is there any way that can help you to keep your organizational details safe? Here, you are going to know about five different methods to do it. Thus, make sure to check them out.

• Using a Proper Email Solution: In essence, email has always been one of the topmost attack vectors of ransomware programs. Hence, you should begin taking your protective measurements by using a robust email security solution. Make sure not to choose something that only offers product-based safety measures. Also, you would have to train your employees more about spotting the anomalies in the network and learn more about phishing issues.
• Enhancing Endpoint Detection: Aside from taking care of the email security, you will have to amplify the strength of your endpoint detection system as well. It, in turn, will help you to establish more network detection solutions that can alert you about the adversities. Besides, you can also implement a multi-factor authentication system on your infrastructure. It will aid you in accessing all the administrators and remote accounts of your organization.
• Implementing a Backup of Critical Data: Some hackers tend to modify the critical data of a corporation through ransomware programs. So, to avoid such a situation, you can keep a proper backup of all the available details of your company. For more convenience, you can keep both an online as well as an offline backup on your system. It, sequentially, will beneficial for you to recover your modified data and avoid paying to the cybercriminal.
• Employing a Strong Security Solution: When you are trying to save your organizational data from a ransomware program, using a strong security solution does make a lot of sense. However, only deploying it is not going to be enough for you. Aside from that, you would also have to use a vulnerability assessment tool for understanding the depth of the danger. In addition to this, you can also include UBA or User Behavior Analytics in your system. It will offer a real-time alert if any of your end-users derivate from the baseline activities. The usage of a whitelisting software program can be ideal in this aspect as well.
• Establishing Working Policies in a Proper Manner: Last yet not least, you will have to enforce some policies as well that can prevent underprivileged users from accessing CMD tools or PowerShell. It will hopefully make your data much less vulnerable to an outer source.

Conclusion

Due to technological advancements, the usage and deployment of ransomware are increasing quite massively. Thus, make sure to implement some proper policies, security solutions, and customer identity and access management system to avert the impending issues appropriately.

ARCON is a leading enterprise risk control solutions provider, specializing in risk-predictive technologies. ARCON | User Behaviour Analytics enables to monitor end-user activities in real time. ARCON | Privileged Access Management reinforces access control and mitigates data breach threats. ARCON | Secure Compliance Management is a vulnerability assessment tool.