Why Adopt PAM to Secure Big Data

As cyber thefts focus more on is looking at cracking through super users and regulatory requirements revolve around big data, ignoring either big data or super users can prove disastrous.

Finding creative, innovative ways of breaking into data treasures, and hacking is today’s reality. Privileged account management has been critical to data security, and this IT security feature has been at the center of attention. The latest data breaches have been cases where attackers compromised a privileged user’s credentials to gain unobstructed authorized access to data.

Often data gathering is becoming a business domain in itself, however Bulk data gathering is still done with no regard and attention to data security. Data-collection practices of companies and governments for legit reasons (such as health records) or through mobile based applications, browser cookies have created trust issues.

Getting into an antagonistic position because data is unprotected is a situation no corporate will want to find themselves in. Cyber theft is not limited to anti-virus and anti-malware software. For businesses it is about keeping it in a well organized folder of data – available to access for right users, attending to regulations and secured from cyber criminals and internal rouge employees. Given the complexity of technology involved, there are many important elements of technology that go un-noticed.

While focus on Identity and Access Management (IAM) calls for monitoring the users. What sets the game apart is monitoring the activities undertaken through super accounts (privilege accounts), keeping digital data in carefully organised folders. The power of harnessing Privilege Account Management (PAM) in case of secure big data is immense.

Privilege users are the custodian of data, policy, governance, security and if these accounts land on wrong hand they can be the biggest threat to enterprises. It should not be a reactionary approach but a proactive approach to make way for secure IT systems. Breaches happen, and many breaches go unreported. Privilege accounts can breach personal data, complete unauthorized transactions, setup denial-of-service attacks and hide activity related data.

Control of privileged accounts is at the top of the auditor’s findings list and also essential for regulatory compliances such as Sarbanes-Oxley, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and HIPAA. On top of it businesses are asking for a review of privilege controls as part of Auditing Standards (SAS) 70 reviews.

While it is claimed that 100 percent secure setup is a far cry, but that’s not true. Various tools and technique are available and a mix of all can lead to realisation of secure IT systems.

Centrify offers Privilege Account Management solutions for corporate aimed at Identity Consolidation, Privilege Management and Audit. The solution secures broad range of mission-critical servers from cyber-attacks and insider threats. Avancer is Centrify’s partner specifically for Privilege Account Management (among other solutions). With a platform of integrated software and cloud-based services, Centrify’s solution uniquely secures and unifies identity for users across today’s hybrid IT world of cloud, mobile and data center.