Securing Privileged Access for the Modern Enterprise: The Evolution of Cloud PAM

Securing Privileged Access in the Cloud

Moving from theory to practice for the Zero Trust and ZSP paradigms requires more than a mindset shift on the part of security and identity leaders. It also demands new processes and technologies, ones that were created specifically for the task at hand. The inherent complexity and ephemerality of cloud environments renders many legacy administrative and development practices insecure. Even DevOps, which has become popular in part because it’s naturally amenable to the fast-paced change that’s synonymous with cloud computing, can introduce vulnerabilities into code if CI/CD pipelines aren’t built with security in mind.

In particular, cloud environments require new ways of managing identity lifecycles while maintaining visibility across hybrid and multi-cloud ecosystems. And maintaining secure cloud development practices will necessitate new ways of managing secrets and privileged accounts within highly-automated test and production environments. And privileged machine identities must be managed in a way that’s dynamic as well as time- and function-limited. That’s where cloud PAM comes in.

Cloud PAM is designed for the cloud and built in the cloud to solve privilege management challenges unique to the cloud. It is specifically designed to work with SaaS applications as well as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) computing models.

Secure_Access_Diagram-1080-1b

Purpose-built to make Just-in-Time access and ZSP paradigms enforceable, cloud PAM automates simple decision-making about whether or not to grant particular access requests, and turns more complex requests over to a human for review. This eliminates errors while saving time and reducing management complexity. Cloud PAM is able to seamlessly incorporate risk-based business intelligence into approval workflows.

Cloud PAM natively integrates with DevOps tools as well as the communication platforms that are in widespread use in today’s remote work-enabled business computing environments. It also works with security information and event management (SIEM) platforms and other security alerting infrastructures. And it integrates with identity governance solutions.

Because cloud PAM is itself a SaaS solution, it comes with all the benefits that enterprises have come to expect from cloud-based platforms. There’s no need to invest in infrastructure, management is done for you, and configuring and updating the software is easy. Deployment is simple, too. It’s delivered via an agentless, zero-touch architecture and can be deployed in days even at a large organization.

“Here at Saviynt, we believe in utilizing native cloud technologies to build a platform that is elastic, resilient and can be delivered as a service. We are realizing these principles by adopting a web browser-based design pattern, by converging governance capabilities into our product and by deeply integrating with public cloud providers’ native security frameworks. ”

– Vibhuti Sinha, Chief Product Officer at Saviynt

CIEM vs. IGA vs. Cloud PAM

What is CIEM?

Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) is an emerging category of technologies that manage identity lifecycles and provide access governance controls across hybrid and multi-cloud IaaS architectures.

  • CIEM streamlines the implementation of least privilege access controls in highly-dynamic cloud environments.
  • CIEM integrates visibility and governance from Identity Governance Administration (IGA) solutions in the cloud to manage entitlements consistently.
  • CIEM resolves management and oversight challenges in cloud environments.

What is IGA?

Identity Governance Administration (IGA) solutions manage digital identity lifecycles and account provisioning across SaaS solutions as well as enterprise applications that are hosted on-premises or in cloud infrastructures. IGA centralizes and simplifies identity management and by automating account provisioning and de-provisioning and ensuring that roles and profiles are always up to date. CIEM fills in the gaps between IGA and legacy PAM (which handles privilege management only).

What is Cloud PAM?

Cloud PAM is an integrated approach that incorporates all three sets of capabilities.

Explore the eBook for a full scope on Cloud PAM:

  • Limitations of legacy PAM for cloud ecosystems
  • Zero Trust and Zero Standing Privilege
  • Safeguards for software & machine service accounts
  • Calibrating cloud speed & security with DevSecOps
  • Saviynt’s innovative CPAM-as-a-service platform

Want to learn more about measuring the ROI of your identity investment?

Sean Ryan of Forrester shares five of his best practices for maximizing return on identity management investments. 

Saviynt’s Enterprise Identity Cloud helps modern enterprises scale cloud initiatives and solve the toughest security and compliance challenges in record time. The platform brings together identity governance (IGA), granular application access, cloud security, and privileged access (PAM) to secure the entire business ecosystem and provide a frictionless user experience. The world’s largest brands trust Saviynt to accelerate digital transformation, empower distributed workforces, and meet continuous compliance, including BP, Western Digital, Mass Mutual, and Koch Industries. For more information, please visit saviynt.com.

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