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As companies adapt to the new world of remote and hybrid work, security strategies are changing.

Regardless of where employees are working, employees still need access to different business resources like apps, files, and data/ 

But these resources also need to be only accessible to the appropriate employees, and IT teams need a way to control what users can and can’t access so crucial business systems and applications are restricted to only the people that need to work with them. 

Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions have become essential tools for keeping organisations secure by managing privileged accounts and monitoring access to critical business resources.

What is Privileged Access Management (PAM)?

Privileged Access Management (PAM) is a security strategy that controls access to critical systems and data within an organization. It involves managing the privileges granted to individuals who have elevated access rights, such as administrators, developers, and other privileged users.

PAM solutions typically involve a central repository of privileged credentials, such as passwords and private keys. These credentials are strictly managed and controlled, ensuring that only authorized individuals can access them.

pam solutions what is pam

When a user needs to perform a privileged task, they must request and authenticate access through the PAM system. This provides a layer of security and accountability, as all privileged activities are logged and monitored.

In addition to credential management, PAM solutions also often include features like session recording, password rotation, and privileged account monitoring. These features help organizations comply with regulatory requirements, detect potential security threats, and mitigate risks associated with privileged access.

By implementing a robust PAM solution, organizations can significantly reduce the risk of data breaches, comply with industry regulations, and protect their critical assets.

Key features of PAM solutions

1. Password Management

PAM centralizes the storage and management of privileged credentials, ensuring they are securely stored and rotated regularly. This helps prevent unauthorized access and reduces the risk of credential theft.

2. Session Monitoring

 PAM solutions provide real-time visibility into privileged sessions, allowing administrators to monitor user activity, detect anomalies, and identify potential security threats. This helps prevent unauthorized access to sensitive systems and data.

3. Access Control

PAM enforces granular access controls based on roles, policies, and specific tasks. This ensures that users only have the privileges they need to perform their job functions, reducing the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches.

4. Activity Logging

PAM solutions capture detailed logs of all privileged activities, providing a comprehensive audit trail for compliance purposes and incident investigation. This enables organizations to track user behaviour, identify security incidents, and demonstrate compliance with industry regulations.

5. Just-in-Time Access

PAM can be configured to provide temporary, just-in-time access to privileged accounts, reducing the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches. This ensures that users only have the privileges they need for a specific task, limiting the potential damage if a credential is compromised.

6. Integration with Other Security Tools

PAM solutions often integrate with other security tools, such as identity and access management (IAM) systems, network security devices, and security information and event management (SIEM) platforms. This provides a comprehensive security solution that can help organizations protect their sensitive systems and data.

Best PAM solutions for 2024

best pam solutions

There are a variety of privileged access management software and solutions to help organizations manage privileged access and keep organizational IT infrastructure secure.

Here are ten of the best PAM solutions on the market today based on their popularity with users and range of features for keeping IT infrastructure secure. 

WALLIX PAM

WALLIX PAM is a powerful PAM solution designed to manage and secure privileged accounts within an organization’s IT and OT environments. The solution is well suited to large, complex organizations with challenging compliance requirements, allowing super administrators to define access for privileged users to all systems. Administrators can also grant and revoke privileges centrally using rules – covering full access control to devices, servers, databases and applications using criteria like IP address, username, time frames, and protocol. The WALLIX Report Manager is able to generate custom statistical and alert reports according to business or audit requirements, making it easy to keep track of all privileged access accounts.

WALLIX manages and secures all passwords in a certified vault, meaning users do not know the actual passwords for the accounts they are administering as they only access services via WALLIX. The solution also lets the super admin track and monitor all connections and actions taken by privileged users, recording privileged account sessions in video format. In contrast with PAM solutions that require the installation of dedicated software agents on each system under its control, WALLIX uses an agentless architecture. The ease of deployment and change management drives a high level of adoption and adherence to PAM policies, making it easy to get everyone within a business on board with boosting security. 

Senasegura PAM

Senasegura PAM is a full-stack PAM Security Platform that manages the entire Privilege Access lifecycle to it not only ensure security but also provides unmatched business value. A leading privileged access management tool, the platform centralizes the management of privileged accounts, enforcing granular access controls and monitoring user activity to help mitigate the risks associated with unauthorized access and data breaches. The solution has been meticulously architected and developed to offer the highest possible security, offering built-in High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) capabilities to ensure seamless upgrades and recovery from disasters with minimum downtime.

At the core of Senasegura PAM is its robust password management capabilities. The solution securely stores and rotates privileged credentials, reducing the risk of credential theft and unauthorized access. Senasegura PAM alsooffers advanced session monitoring features, allowing administrators to track user activity, detect anomalies, and identify potential security threats in real-time. By enforcing granular access controls based on roles, policies, and specific tasks, Senasegura PAM ensures that users only have the privileges they need to perform their job functions, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access.

ManageEngine PAM360

ManageEngine PAM360 is a powerful PAM solution that helps IT teams take control of their privileged access routines. The platform comes with pre-built privileged account and season management (PASM), allowing administrators to automatically discover, onboard, store and manage privileged users, accounts and resources – used by both humans and software – from a central console. Administrators can also ]launch remote sessions, moderate and audit privileged access and record sessions in real-time, making it easy to spot suspicious user activity patterns and make informed security decisions using AI and ML-driven anomaly detection capabilities.

With PAM360, it’s easy is its ability to centralize the management of privileged accounts. By securely storing and rotating credentials, the solution helps prevent unauthorized access and reduces the risk of credential theft. Additionally, ManageEngine PAM provides advanced session monitoring features, allowing administrators to track user activity, detect anomalies, and identify potential security threats in real time.

Broadcom Symantec PAM

Broadcom Symantec PAM is a powerful and comprehensive solution designed to safeguard sensitive systems and data within organizations. By centralizing the management of privileged accounts, monitoring user activity, and enforcing granular access controls, the platform helps mitigate the risks associated with unauthorized access and data breaches. You can enforce fine-grained access controls over superuser accounts to support secure task delegation and compromised accounts, enabling applications and scripts to retrieve secrets from an encrypted vault rather than have these credentials hard-coded. You can also monitor privileged user activities to assess risk and trigger automatic mitigation actions when unusual behavior is detected, and there’s even the option to capture a video of all privileged user actions to improve accountability and provide forensic evidence of malicious activity. 

With its focus on protecting sensitive data and preventing unauthorized access, Broadcom Symantec PAM is a valuable tool for organizations of all sizes seeking to enhance their security posture. The platform has an industry-leading credentials vault that provides secure, encrypted storage and rotation of privileged credentials, ensuring they are protected from unauthorized access and reducing the risk of credential theft. Symantec PAM also offers advanced session monitoring features, allowing administrators to track user activity, detect anomalies, and identify potential security threats in real time. This is a comprehensive feature set, paired with the platform’s ease of use, and commitment to security. 

BeyondTrust Remote Support

BeyondTrust Remote Support is a leading PAM solution that enables organizations to securely manage and control access to remote systems and applications. The platform provides all the tools administrators need for secure remote access, privileged session management, and password management capabilities, helping organizations mitigate security risks and ensure compliance with industry regulations. The platform provides simple, secure remote access for trusted vendors connecting to your systems, eliminating the need for VPNs and known credentials. It also makes it easy to gain full visibility and control over all actions, permissions, and more, in every privileged session. This means ensuring compliance is easily met with granular details of every session automatically recorded and logged.

At the heart of BeyondTrust Remote Support is its secure remote access functionality, which enables authorized users to connect to remote systems and applications over a secure connection. This eliminates the need for physical access, reducing the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches. Additionally, BeyondTrust Remote Support offers robust privileged session management features, allowing administrators to monitor and control user activity, record sessions, and enforce access policies.

Secret Server by Delinea

Delinea's Secret Server is a leading PAM solution that provides organizations with a robust set of tools to protect sensitive systems and data. The platform is one of the easiest-to-use PAM solutions on the market, allowing teams to get up and running fast with solutions for privileged account discovery, turnkey installation and out-of-the-box auditing and reporting tools. Once installed, it makes it easy to manage multiple databases, software applications, hypervisors, network devices, and security tools, even in large-scale, distributed environments – allowing you to identify all service, application, administrator, and root accounts to curb sprawl and gain a full view of your privileged access.

Secret Server is built to fit every organization’s Privileged Access Management needs today and tomorrow. You can create endless customizations with direct control to on-premise and cloud PAM and store privileged credentials in an encrypted, centralized vault with the option to enable quantum-safe encryption. It also comes pre-built with advanced session monitoring features, allowing administrators to track user activity, detect anomalies, and identify potential security threats in real time. This real-time identity management, paired with the tool's ease of use and impressive feature set, make Secret Server one of the best PAM solutions available today. 

StrongDM

StrongDM is a cloud-native PAM solution that offers a simplified and secure approach to managing access to critical infrastructure. Unlike traditional PAM tools, the platform focuses on providing granular control over access to individual resources rather than relying on static roles and permissions. You can create and enforce fine-grained access control and Tailor who gets access, to what, and when – ensuring the right people have the right access at the right time. It also gives you a bird’s-eye view of your digital environment so you can track who accessed what and when spyou have clarity you need to make informed security decisions.

StrongDM is designed for simplicity, enabling users to securely access the resources they need without frustration. It’s about making your day smoother, not more complicated. The platform’s workflows empower your team with just-in-time access, reducing the attack surface without hindering productivity. StrongDM can also be integrated with existing tools and the policies can be applied without requiring you to recode your apps or move your secrets. Whether your infrastructure spans multiple clouds, utilizes diverse databases, or relies on critical applications, StrongDM seamlessly integrates with technologies you trust.

Iraje PAM

Developed with a focus on security and efficiency, Iraje PAM is a comprehensive Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution designed to protect your organization's critical assets. The platform offers a robust approach to managing privileged accounts, ensuring they are used securely and responsibly to help businesses manage, monitor and control privileged users to avoid super user password compromises. It offers real-time monitoring of privileged user sessions, allowing administrators to detect suspicious activity and prevent unauthorized access through features like keystroke logging and video recording. It also allows you to enforce granular access controls and grant users only the privileges they need to perform specific tasks to minimize the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches.

Unlike some PAM solutions that require agents on every device, Iraje PAM operates agentlessly, simplifying deployment and reducing maintenance overhead. The platform makes it easy to manage the identities and accesses of all privileged users within the enterprise by providing role-based access with single sign-on to all enterprise assets. It also allows you to recorded sessions and replay them whenever you like so as to monitor privileged user access to critical enterprise assets and live privileged user sessions and terminate them if necessary. This emphasis on security, efficiency, and ease of use makes Iraje PAM a compelling choice for organizations seeking to safeguard their sensitive data and infrastructure. 

ARCON PAM

ARCON PAM is a powerful privileged access management solution that provides extensive technology integrations, features and scalability to ensure robust security for high-value systems and data. The platform makes it easy to effectively manage users by enabling you to onboard them from Microsoft AD, AWS, Azure, and GCP network, and add new server groups, user accounts with privileges to a single PAM instance. You can trant access based on “need to know” and “need to do” basis and Access Control Its Access Control feature allows you to manage privileged users based on their roles, responsibilities, and tasks – enforcing the principle of least privileges and reducing the risk of unauthorized access and misuse of sensitivity systems and data. It also offers critical features and functions to manage and protect credentials/SSH keys/secrets meant to access privileged accounts, including vaulting, randomization and retrieval of credentials for interactive access to target systems by privileged users.

ARCON provides a range of core functions to monitor, terminate, and record privileged sessions. The platform makes it easy to ensure authorized operations in authorized systems with real-time threat detection and responses as well as ensure stringent security for overly critical privileged sessions with audit trials for all fired commands and files accessed. The platform’s Just-in-Time (JIT) privileges Enforce the principle of least privileges and mitigate the chance of privileged access abuse by implementing ARCON’s Just-in-time (JIT) privileges capabilities, which offers all standard JIT approaches to ensure that the right person has access to the right systems at the right time.

CyberArk PAM

CyberArK PAM is an industry-leading PAM solution that provides all the tools you need to keep your business and its assets secure. The solution offers full protection from advanced and insider threats to protect companies from risks and meet compliance requirements and can support any device and has more deployments in large-scale distributed and virtual environments. It also automatically discovers and onboards privileged credentials and secrets used by human and non-human identities, providing centralized policy management to allow administrators to set policies for password complexity, and frequency of password rotations. It also comes with automated password rotation, helping strengthen security while eliminating time-intensive, manual processes for the IT teams. 

With CyberArk, credentials are available for automatic rotation, and IT teams can also choose to audit and record various privileged sessions in a repository with high-level encryption. Recordings also include video playback with views of specific activities and keystrokes. Both modules integrate fully with the Standard solution, and CyberArk comes with a range of on-premises, SaaS, and cloud deployments. This enables organizations to manage user access to applications, systems, and networks from a single console, providing a unified platform for Identity and access management while reducing the risk of unauthorized access and improving overall security.