Privileged accounts remain one of the most attractive targets for an attacker. A compromised administrator account can grant access to servers, databases, cloud services, network equipment, and, in the worst-case scenario, the entire IT environment. But today, Privileged Access Management is about much more than simply storing administrator passwords in a secure vault.
A modern PAM solution should be able to control who is granted privileged access, to what, under what conditions, and for how long. It should also be able to show what actually happened when that access was used.
This is a significantly broader task than what password vaults were originally designed for. Here are eight areas worth evaluating carefully, whether you’re choosing a new solution or looking to enhance the one you already have.
1. From Permanent Admin Privileges to Just-in-Time
The most important change in PAM is the transition from permanent administrative privileges to Just-in-Time (JIT) and Just Enough Access (JEA).
Instead of an administrator always being a member of a privileged group, access is granted only when it’s actually needed and is automatically revoked once the task is complete. The goal is to get as close as possible to Zero Standing Privileges—that is, an environment where, in principle, no user has permanent privileged access.
A modern solution should therefore be able to:
- grant time-limited privileges
- require approval for sensitive systems
- automatically revoke privileges when the time expires
- restrict access to specific systems or tasks
- create temporary accounts, known as ephemeral accounts, that are deleted after use
The benefit is twofold. You reduce the attack surface, and you minimize the impact if a regular user account were to be compromised.
2. Context and risk should influence access
It’s not always enough to verify the user’s identity. A modern PAM strategy also takes the context of the access into account.
Which device is being used, and is it trusted and managed? Where is the user connecting from? Is the behavior normal for this particular person? Which system are they trying to access, and is there an approved change request or support ticket associated with the action?
For particularly sensitive systems, for example, you can require step-up MFA immediately before a privileged session begins, even if the user is already logged in.
In this way, PAM becomes part of the organization’s Zero Trust architecture rather than a standalone password solution separate from everything else.
3. Session Management Without Exposing Passwords
Session management remains at the core of PAM. Administrators, consultants, and vendors should be able to connect to Windows, Linux, and network environments without the privileged password ever being visible to the user. The PAM platform then acts as a secure intermediary between the user and the target environment.
Evaluate support for, among other things:
- RDP, SSH, and web application sessions
- Password-free or credential-less connections
- session recording and logging of commands and activities
- real-time monitoring and the ability to terminate an active session
- control over which commands or applications are allowed to run
For organizations with segmented networks, OT environments, or multiple data centers, there is an additional requirement that is often overlooked during evaluation: the solution must be able to handle privileged connections without each target system having direct network connectivity to the central PAM platform.
4. Better analysis of what is actually happening during the session
Traditional session recording provides excellent audit material. The problem is that analyzing several hours of video footage is time-consuming, which in practice means the material is rarely used until something has already happened.
The next generation of session management is therefore about making the information searchable and analyzable. A modern solution should help the security team quickly identify unusual commands, the launch of sensitive programs, changes to critical systems, anomalous user behavior, and activities that violate the organization’s policies.
AI-based or automated session analysis can also summarize long sessions and highlight the most relevant activities. As a result, session recording evolves from being purely an audit tool to also becoming a tool for incident detection and investigation.
5. Privilege elevation also applies to users’ computers
PAM no longer needs to be limited to server administrators. Permanent local administrator privileges on users’ computers are a significant security risk in and of themselves, and one of the most common paths forward for an attacker who has already gained a foothold.
With Endpoint Privilege Management, the user operates as a standard user and receives temporary privilege elevation when a specific application or task requires administrator privileges. In practice, this can mean that an application runs with elevated privileges without the user becoming a local administrator, that a technician is granted administrator privileges for 30 minutes, that only approved applications can be elevated, and that every elevation is logged and linked to a ticket or an approval.
This is how the principle of least privilege becomes practically applicable even on client machines, without causing the support workload to skyrocket.
6. People aren’t the only ones with privileges
A rapidly growing portion of privileged access comes from non-human identities: service accounts, application accounts, API keys, access tokens, SSH keys, database accounts, CI/CD pipelines, scripts, and automated processes. Added to this are AI agents and other autonomous services, a category that is growing rapidly right now.
These identities often have extensive permissions and are used automatically, rendering traditional manual processes more or less useless.
A modern PAM strategy must therefore also include secrets management. Secrets should be stored centrally, rotated automatically, and retrieved dynamically by applications, without passwords or API keys being hard-coded in scripts, configuration files, or source code.
7. Integrations Automate Security
PAM should not function as an isolated security silo. Integrations with the organization’s other systems both raise the level of security and reduce administrative overhead.
IAM and Identity Governance
Users, roles, and groups can be automatically provisioned and deprovisioned when a person’s role changes.
ITSM
Privileged access may require a valid incident, change, or service request before it is granted.
SIEM and SOC
Privileged activities can be sent to the central monitoring system and correlated with other security events.
MFA and Identity Providers
Centralized authentication, federated identity, and strong authentication should also apply to privileged access.
When these systems work together, large parts of the privileged access process can be automated, which is crucial in organizations where the IT department is already stretched thin.
8. Compliance and traceability are built in from the start
For Nordic organizations, requirements for governance and traceability have been tightened through regulations such as NIS2, the Cybersecurity Act, DORA, GDPR, and various ISO standards. But the goal shouldn’t be simply to show an auditor a log. The goal is for the organization to be able to quickly answer six questions:
- Who had access to the system?
- Why was that person granted access?
- Who approved the access?
- When did the access begin and end?
- What did the user do during the session?
- Were there any anomalies or security incidents?
For this to work, logs, session recordings, and access history must be tamper-proof and easy to search, export, and integrate with the organization’s other security platforms.
PAM is no longer just a password vault
Privileged Access Management has evolved from password management to become a layer of control for an organization’s most sensitive access. A modern strategy combines identity management, least privilege, Just-in-Time access, session security, secrets management, and continuous monitoring.
The goal is not to make administrators’ work more complicated. On the contrary, a good PAM solution should make it easier to obtain the right access when needed, while minimizing permanent privileged access, shared passwords, and unmonitored administrative sessions.
When evaluating a solution , the question should therefore not be , “How securely does it store our administrator passwords?”
A better question is:
How much of our privileged access can we make temporary, traceable, risk-based, and automated?
That’s where the real security gains lie.
Would you like to discuss how this applies to your environment? We provide PAM360 and Password Manager Pro from ManageEngine, and can help you assess your current situation, evaluate the solution against your requirements, and get started with a pilot. Reach out to us, and we’ll schedule a call.
