Guardian of business secrets: privileged user
Hacking privileged accounts is a dream of cybercriminals, as these accounts provide access to sensitive information critical to your business operations. Therefore, password protection deserves special attention.
Not only private individuals make the mistake of neglecting their passwords that protect their most important data. In many companies, neither management nor employees take care of strong passwords. The most common weak passwords include “12345” or even more unimaginative “password”. Hackers need to face a greater challenge than this!
Who is a privileged user?
A privileged user is someone who has access to critical systems. A privileged user has more permissions than a regular user.
Typical users of privileged accounts are system administrators responsible for managing an entire IT environment and IT administrators who perform tasks related to operating specific software or hardware.
A privileged user has high IT privileges:
- Installs hardware/software
- Accesses sensitive data
- Sets up and deletes user accounts and roles in the system
- Generates and resets passwords
- Is present throughout the IT environment and invisible to most people
- Has special access levels different from regular user accounts.
Privileged accounts in the corporate environment
Since privileged accounts are used by system administrators to run or maintain an IT system, almost every organization that owns a server, database, or application is involved in managing such access. Furthermore, privileged access extends beyond the traditional IT infrastructure management of an organization, encompassing social media, Google, WordPress, or any other shared password-protected application managed by employees. An organization may have twice or three times as many privileged accounts as it has employees.
Types of privileged accounts in the corporate environment:
- Local or domain administrative accounts that manage servers
- Domain administrative accounts that manage AD (Active Directory, a collection of Microsoft’s network services)
- Service accounts that support database management
- Unix/Linux root accounts that manage platforms
- Accounts that run and manage Windows applications
- Accounts responsible for network security that supports the operation of firewalls and routers.
The risks of hacking privileged accounts
Two typical risks can be mentioned in the case of privileged accounts:
- Privileged accounts are not protected by a strong password in most cases. This makes them easy to guess or crack.
- Attackers who gain access to privileged accounts can use them to steal sensitive data or cause damage to the organization’s infrastructure. Since privileged accounts have extensive access rights, once an attacker gains control, they can cause significant damage in a short time.
The above factors pose a serious vulnerability for any organization.
PassMan – Enterprise Password Manager
If you store your company passwords on notes, Excel spreadsheets, or in Keepass software that doesn’t manage permissions, it’s time to switch to a simple, secure, and well-controlled system!
The PassMan Password Manager securely stores your passwords in an encrypted, centralized vault and only provides access to users with the appropriate permissions. Everyone can only access the data they need for their job. The activities of users – who logged into the system, when they did so, and what passwords they requested – are fully traceable, with fast access to information provided through reports and activity logs. The system also takes care of password generation and rotation depending on the settings.
Try PassMan for free!