Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Monitoring privileged access is crucial for organizations of all sizes, not just large enterprises. Privileged Access Management (PAM) refers to the security and management of privileged accounts, such as administrators or third-party vendors, that have access to sensitive data and systems. Although PAM is traditionally viewed as a solution for large enterprises, small businesses also benefit significantly from implementing PAM solutions, especially as they expand into hybrid and cloud environments.

After nearly two decades in cybersecurity and more customer conversations than I can count, one thing’s clear: no matter the industry, every organization is dealing with compliance headaches. Finance, healthcare, retail – it doesn’t matter. If you’ve got users with access to systems, you’ve got audit controls to worry about. And most of the time, people have way more access than they actually need. That’s where privileged access management (PAM) comes in.

Implementing a Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution is essential to securing an organization’s most sensitive data. However, IT teams often face challenges in effectively deploying a PAM solution that satisfies both security and compliance requirements. Common challenges include complex integration with existing systems, scalability limitations and poor user experience. Continue reading to learn more about the challenges organizations face when implementing PAM and how to overcome them.

Often overlooked, identities are prime targets for bad actors. In December 2024, a compromised API key in the BeyondTrust Remote Support SaaS environment was enough to cause a privilege escalation attack. The year before, Microsoft hit the headlines as an SAS token leak exposed over 38TB of sensitive data. The good news is that simplifying user access and eliminating security risks from standing privileges has never been more achievable thanks to the right identity lifecycle management (ILM) tools.

Security breaches are increasingly expensive and harder to spot, extending beyond common attacks like phishing. Attackers are now targeting the least visible parts of your infrastructure: non-human identities (NHIs). NHIs outnumber human identities by 45:1 in cloud environments—these include service accounts, APIs, applications, and bots that interact with systems and access sensitive data.

Privileged Access Management (PAM) plays a crucial role in protecting sensitive data by controlling, monitoring and limiting access to systems and accounts. PAM focuses specifically on managing accounts with elevated permissions, such as administrator or root accounts. These accounts, if compromised or misused, can pose significant security risks and potentially lead to severe data breaches.

The management of user access to an organization’s assets, applications, and systems is never static. Users are coming and going, different roles require different access, and for some, privileged access – elevated permissions and access capabilities granted to specific users or groups of users — is needed for mission-critical business functions.

Omdia, a global analyst and advisory leader, recently released a report called “How Extended Access Management (XAM) closes the gaps in security.” The report defines the challenges of modern access management as: These unmanaged forms of access create an Access-Trust Gap: The security risks posed by unfederated identities, unmanaged devices, applications, and AI-powered tools accessing company data without proper governance controls.

This blog has been adapted from an excerpted section of 1Password’s ebook: Why SSO is not enough for identity security. To read the complete ebook and learn more about the issues that SSO can’t cover, click here. Sign-on (SSO) solutions are designed to manage and secure access to applications. By integrating with a company’s identity provider (IdP), SSO allows users to authenticate to multiple applications via a single log-in.