INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Enterprise Security
users routinely share passwords
with each other, and a fourth
report the use of weak passwords.
Shockingly, one in five report
many users don’t even change the
default passwords!
2. Greed: Users often insist they need
full administrative privileges over their
devices, and that creates problems for
IT. 79% of respondents cite allowing
users to run as administrators on their
machines as their biggest threat,
followed by not having control over
applications on users’ machines
(68%). Yet, nearly two in five
respondents admit it is common for
users to run as administrators on their
machines. It is no surprise that many
respondents say these practices
have directly caused downtime of
computing systems.
3. Pride: As the saying goes, pride
cometh before the fall. One in five
respondents say attacks combining
privileged access with exploitation
of an unpatched vulnerability are
common. Simply patching known
system vulnerabilities can prevent
most of today’s commonly-reported
attack vectors. Yet, too often, IT does
not stay current on their patches.
4. Ignorance: Two-thirds say
managing least privilege for
Unix/Linux servers is somewhat
to extremely important. One
popular option is Sudo. However,
just 29% say Sudo meets their
needs. The most commonly cited
problems with Sudo include being
time-consuming to use (32%),
complexity (31%) and poor version
control (29%). Despite this, the
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“Enterprises
are rushing to
embrace cloud
computing. Yet,
more than a third
report that they
are not involved in
protecting SaaS
applications from
privileged access
abuse.”
typical respondent runs Sudo on 40
workstations and 25 servers.
5. Envy: Enterprises are rushing to
embrace cloud computing. Yet,
more than a third report that they
are not involved in protecting
SaaS applications from privileged
access abuse.
There are steps any organisation can
take to address the five deadly sins:
• Deploy enterprise password
management globally across all
data centres, virtual and cloud. A
centralised password management
solution that includes built-in session
monitoring will ensure that both
important capabilities are met with
strong workflow and ease of use.
• Remove local admin rights from
ALL Windows and MacOS end users
immediately. 94% of Microsoft
system vulnerabilities in 2016 can be
attributed to users with admin rights.
Once all users are standard users, IT
teams can elevate a user’s access
to specific applications to perform
whatever action is necessary as part
of their role without elevating the
entire user on the machine.
• Prioritise and patch vulnerabilities.
Better prioritisation and patching of
vulnerabilities provides IT with better
insight into whether to delegate
privileges to an asset or application.
The result is better intelligence and
less risk of unknowns.
• Replace Sudo for complete protection
of Unix/Linux servers. With pressure
on budgets, organisations may have
to use Sudo, but it doesn’t offer the
industrial-strength capabilities that
today’s security needs.
• Unify privileged access management
– on-premise, in the cloud – into
a single console for management,
policy, reporting and analytics. As
organisations race to adopt SaaS/
PaaS/IaaS to keep pace with business
demands, IT must provide the same
level of protection to cloud-based
systems as for on-premise systems.
This includes capabilities such as
enabling automation for DevOps;
finding, grouping and scanning
cloud assets; protecting virtual and
cloud management consoles and
instances; using a cloud access
service broker to enable third party
access; and performing vulnerability
assessments for hybrid and public
cloud infrastructures. n
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