Ema Cyber-Ark WP
Ema Cyber-Ark WP
Ema Cyber-Ark WP
August 2008
Table of Contents
Executive Summary..............................................................................................................................1
EMA Perspective...................................................................................................................................9
About Cyber-Ark.................................................................................................................................10
Executive Summary
The rise of identity and access management has revolutionized how the enterprise defines
a key domain of IT risk control. Access management has become a cornerstone of best
practice in IT governance, risk and compliance control—except for the most important
access of all, the privileged user for shared administrative accounts, and the embedded
application identities found within applications, scripts and application servers.
These high-privilege super-user and administrative accounts that directly control IT re-
sources and applications themselves have largely been overlooked by enterprises seeking
to mature their access management strategy. These accounts are often shared and may be
managed by the most minimal security controls—if not exposed outright, embedded as
plaintext in application and script code, or left unchanged from out-of-the-box defaults or
initial settings.
Poor controls over privileged access pose significant risks, if not some of the largest a busi-
ness could face. In a recent high-profile case, the municipal government of San Francisco
was literally locked out of control over one of its most important networking systems
by the actions of a disciplined administrator who apparently had sole control over this
environment, and who either refused or was unable to supply administrative passwords to
the City. Outright abuse of administrative control over critical business systems was central
in the case of disgruntled systems administrator Roger Duronio, convicted in 2006 of
sabotaging vital IT resources at UBS.
Recognizing the threat as well as the need, Cyber-Ark of-
fers a distinctive approach to greater security and efficiencies
Cyber-Ark’s Enterprise Password around privileged access management. Cyber-Ark’s Enterprise
Password Vault (EPV) offers a hardened and encrypted plat-
Vault (EPV) offers a hardened form for managing the most sensitive access controls, incor-
and encrypted platform for porating a wide range of security measures. These measures
managing the most sensitive yield high flexibility in defining and managing privileged access
to enterprise systems and applications. EPV typically delivers
access controls, incorporating a these values with little or no adverse impact on vital IT re-
wide range of security measures. sources, providing much more granular control over privileged
activity than traditional approaches. It provides linkage of indi-
vidual identity with high-privilege access and actions essential
to “audit-worthy” accountability and policy enforcement, auto-
mating key processes of privileged access provisioning and control. Enterprise Password
Vault supports IT process disciplines key to effective IT risk controls, through integration
with the service desk and support for best practices in IT policy management.
In this paper, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) examines the paradox of IT’s
dirty little secret: the poor state of high-privilege access management that represents a
common point of failure in IT governance, risk and compliance controls. This potential se-
curity and audit failure point threatens organizations worldwide and stands in stark contrast
to enterprise maturity in other aspects of IT control. As regulators and malicious parties
alike expose this most sensitive IT business risk, executives will gain a new appreciation for
the values of what Cyber-Ark defines as Privileged Identity Management (PIM). Cyber-
Ark’s Enterprise Password Vault (EPV) gives the enterprise more effective control over a
broad range of comprehensive IT governance, risk and compliance priorities, and elevated
confidence in the management of privileged access to an organization’s most sensitive
information.
northeastern U.S. grocery chain Hannaford, which had actually certified its PCI compliance
not long before.
Other examples illustrate even more gaps between compliance and actual security. For ex-
ample, high-level regulatory mandates rarely link directly to such technically granular issues
as the access credentials often embedded in application architectures. Though rarely dis-
cussed too openly—but as many system architects are well aware regardless—embedding
usernames and passwords into application integration code is a technique often used to
automate functionality between application components originally designed to be interac-
tive. Discovery and exploit of these embedded access credentials by the malicious remains
a risk to such environments—not to mention the sensitive data they may manage—unless
more secure alternatives can be employed.
Each of these cases reveals a fundamental flaw in many approaches to IT governance,
risk management and compliance: IT controls are only effective if they are truly resis-
tant to subversion. The business that predicates its IT risk and compliance strategy on a
framework of IT controls must therefore ask itself: What happens when the controls on which
this strategy depends are themselves unreliable? Many businesses have invested thousands if not
millions in IT controls, but the effectiveness of control often boils down to one important
question.
•N
early all these resources have some form of administrative access that controls
configuration, functionality—and risk. Sometimes this access is enabled by an
administrative-level user account. In other instances, access is exposed in the form
of scripts or embedded passwords woven into system integration code—often in
plaintext—just to make functionality possible.
The business that underestimates the impact of poorly controlled high-privilege access to
critical business systems should take a second look at the significant financial repercussions
of major security events within large financial organizations that continue to be widely
raised and reported within the media.
Just as significant is the increasingly worrisome threat posed
by more sophisticated attackers. Organized crime plays a much
Organized crime plays a much larger role in IT threats, while the infiltration of high-sensitivity
larger role in IT threats, while IT systems for espionage or strategic military advantage appears
to be on the rise. These factors have made threats far more
the infiltration of high-sensitivity malicious than ever before—and they are in a much better posi-
IT systems for espionage or tion both to penetrate the enterprise, as well as to exploit high-
privilege access if techniques such as passwords embedded in
strategic military advantage applications or stored in plaintext scripts are discovered in an
appears to be on the rise. attack.
Even when legitimately used, high-privilege accounts are often
shared among multiple users, making the tracking of activities
and the traceability of specific actions a challenge all by itself. Businesses have long ap-
plied this level of granularity to individual user accounts. Paradoxically, they have typically
neglected to apply the same level of discipline to accounts that have the highest impact on
business risk.
Throughout all these issues runs the common thread of poorly managed high-privilege ac-
cess that has a direct impact on business risk exposure in IT. Most enterprises have been so
concerned with the threat on the outside that they may have turned a blind eye to this soft
underbelly, where the poor state of control over the most sensitive and critical functionality
is one of IT’s most pernicious dirty little secrets. This has created an environment where
the potential for financially devastating and headline creating events is greatly increased,
both from the risks posed by an insider gone bad, as well as from the inadvertent misuse by
a well-intentioned administrator causing wide ranging unintended consequences.
•A
utomation and auditing of the privileged access management lifecycle, including
provisioning and de-provisioning of access for specific users, as well as measures specific
to high-privilege access such as dual-control and emergency response procedures;
• I ntegration of privileged account management with IT management processes such as
the service desk, help desk or ticketing system, in line with industry best practices that
have a decided and positive impact on IT governance priorities and effective risk and
compliance management.
ONAL ACCOU
ERS NT
P N A
T IO C CO
CA
IT
S
LI
UN
A PP
TS
Privileged User SHARED Privileged Session
Provisioning ACCOUNTS Monitoring
Figure 1: Cyber-Ark’s Enterprise Password Vault increases the security and reliability of management for a
wide range of privileged access and identities. Together, these capabilities address a common and critical
risk management failure across much of IT: poor controls over privileges that directly control IT itself.
User, carrying the concept of user-specific granularity in the control of privileged actions
into the functionality of the Cyber-Ark Vault itself.
Roles such as Vault Administrator and Auditor are separated, with Vault Administrators
able to add users, objects and individual secure individual information stores within the
Vault (what Cyber-Ark calls “safes”), but without access to underlying data, audit records,
or other sensitive information. Auditors can see specific audit records, but cannot add or
modify users, objects, or underlying data, while Vault users can access specific objects and
information at or below their individual level of privilege, and nothing else.
EPV Master Administrator access can be mediated by a number of security measures,
such as cryptographic tokens, multi-factor authentication, and the limiting of access to
the physical EPV environment, for example. Dual-control measures can be employed to
further assure that no individual has broad control over this sensitive capability, while dual-
control and “fire call” procedures can be integrated with access definition to facilitate the
level of access administrators needed to meet any IT management contingency.
By themselves, each of these measures are an improvement from typical, high-privilege ac-
cess management, which may be as simple as a password hash stored in an unencrypted and
readily accessed filesystem, or even a password stored in plaintext. Combined, the capabili-
ties of the Cyber-Ark Vault are a significant integration of measures to more systematically
secure high-privilege access capability.
The Cyber-Ark Enterprise Password Vault also facilitates more granular control over when,
where and how privileged access is granted. In addition to automating access provisioning
and approval processes, specific time constraints, time windows and length of access can
be defined. More specifically, EPV can help to limit access based on the location of the
requester to a specific machine, IP address or geographic location.
EMA Perspective
The paradox of poorly managed, high-privilege access is striking when compared to the
substantial progress made in recent years in the management of ordinary user identity
and access control. Driven by security and compliance concerns as well as by the need to
reduce IT support costs, identity and access management for the general user population
has defined best practices that have helped enterprises reduce risk and improve operational
performance.
Yet when it comes to the most sensitive access of all—that which has a direct bearing on
the effectiveness of IT risk control, as well as the integrity, availability and performance of
critical IT resources—this discipline remains strangely lacking in many organizations. If
the assumption that trust without verification is poor practice when it comes to the general
user population, why should it matter less when it comes to the highest level of privilege
in IT?
Cyber-Ark helps solve the challenges of bringing greater security, discipline and control
to privileged access management, with minimal invasiveness to existing applications or
resources. Founded on Cyber-Ark’s solid Digital Vault ap-
proach to building a hardened platform for securing privileged
access information, the flexibility of the company’s Enterprise
Cyber-Ark helps solve the Password Vault solution is well adapted to system superuser
challenges of bringing greater as well as application environments, offering more effective
linkage of individual actions with granularity of control and
security, discipline and control visibility into activity detail.
to privileged access management, EPV can be integrated with these environments without requir-
with minimal invasiveness to ing re-engineering of application systems or IT assets, and in
existing applications or resources. ways that directly support IT service management best prac-
tices, such as integration with the service desk and automating
the privileged access management lifecycle with high granularity
in control.
Without adequate management of the single points of failure posed by poor controls over
high-privilege access risks, businesses are quite literally gambling on becoming the next
headline. Recent events have turned a spotlight on what has been one of IT’s most uncom-
fortable little secrets, bringing these gaps into sharper focus among auditors and security
professionals worldwide as never before.
In Enterprise Password Vault, Cyber-Ark offers a solution that addresses the most impor-
tant concerns of privileged access control: high security for access information, extensive
granularity in visibility and control over privileged access definition, detailed and accurate
tracking of access for audit and risk management, and ease of integration with existing
resources and best practices. Together, these capabilities meet multiple IT governance, risk
and compliance objectives for balancing more effective control while assuring essential IT
performance is aligned with the top priorities of today’s technology-centric business.
About Cyber-Ark
Cyber-Ark® Software is a leading provider of Privileged Identity Management (PIM) solu-
tions for securing privileged user accounts and highly-sensitive information across the en-
terprise. Long recognized as an industry innovator for its patented Vaulting Technology®,
Cyber-Ark’s digital vault products include: The Enterprise Password Vault™ for the se-
cure management of administrative, application and privileged user passwords; the Inter-
Business Vault®, a secure infrastructure for cross-enterprise data exchange of highly-sensi-
tive information, and the Sensitive Document Vault™ for secure storage and management
of highly-sensitive documents. Cyber-Ark’s award-winning technology is deployed by more
than 400 global customers, including 100 of the world’s largest banks and financial institu-
tions. Headquartered in Newton, MA, Cyber-Ark has offices and authorized partners in
North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.cyber-ark.com.
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