INFOGRAPHIC
Privileged passwo
management bes
practices and ben
Brian Chappell, Director, Product Management at
BeyondTrust, explains the best practices and benef
privileged password management.
Privileged password management
refers to the practice and techniques
of securely controlling credentials
for privileged accounts, services, systems,
applications, machines and more. The
ultimate goal of privileged password
management is to reduce risk by
identifying, securely storing and centrally
managing every credential that provides
elevated access.
Privileged password management works
hand-in-hand with implementing least
privilege and should be a foundational
element of any organisation’s privileged
access management (PAM) initiatives.
Whereas in decades past, an entire
enterprise might be sufficiently managed
through just a handful of credentials,
today’s environmental complexity means
privileged credentials are needed for a
multitude of different privileged account
types (from domain admin and sysadmin to
workstations with admin rights), operating
systems (Windows, Unix, Linux, etc.),
directory services, databases, applications,
cloud instances, networking hardware,
Internet of Things (IoT), social media
and more.
premises and cloud infra
should include every pla
Bring privileged cred
centralised manage
Optimally, the onboardi
at the time of password
otherwise shortly therea
discovery scan. Silos of in
(i.e. DevOps) independe
own passwords are a rec
sprawl and human error
Implement passwor
Rotation policies should
privileged account, syst
hardware and IoT devic
service, etc. This reduce
for password reuse atta
should be unique, never
Most likely, achieving holistic enterprise
password management will follow the course
of a graduated approach but it’s essential
that you focus on these eight areas.
Discover all privileged accounts
This includes shared admin, user, application
and service accounts, SSH keys, database
accounts, cloud and social media accounts
and other privileged credentials – including
those used by vendors – across your on-
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