Privileged Access Management limits misuse of powerful accounts by enforcing least privilege, strong authentication, and session monitoring.
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Background for this topic.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) controls identities and sessions with authority to administer systems, applications, databases, networks, or cloud resources. It limits who can use elevated rights, which actions they can perform, and how long access remains active. This includes administrator accounts, service accounts, emergency access, and cloud roles. PAM matters because stolen credentials or excessive standing privileges can let an attacker disable controls, move between systems, alter configurations, or access sensitive data.
Key practices include separate administrative identities, least privilege, multifactor authentication, secure credential storage and rotation, and just-in-time access that expires when the task is complete. Approval workflows and session or command recording provide accountability and help investigators distinguish authorized administration from misuse. PAM can reduce the blast radius of a vulnerability or compromised account, but it does not replace endpoint security or correct an overly permissive role; its effectiveness depends on accurate inventory, appropriate access policies, and useful monitoring.
ISACA's Rob Clyde and Pam Nigro discuss how to advance digital trust in a security context
Traditional perimeter-based security has become costly and ineffective. As a result, communications security between people, systems, and networks is more important than blocking access with firewalls. On top of that, most cybersecurity risks are caused by just a few superusers – typically one out of 200 users. There’s a company aiming to fix the gap between traditional PAM and IdM