IAM vs PAM: Key Differences

IAM and PAM are two distinct but complementary security solutions that help organizations manage access to their digital assets. Understanding the key differences between these two solutions is essential to selecting the strategy that best suits an organization’s needs.

IAM is an umbrella term that covers all the policies, processes, and technologies used to manage user identities and their access to an organization’s systems, applications, and data.

PAM is a subset of IAM that focuses on managing and securing privileged accounts that have access to sensitive data and critical systems.

The main difference between the two solutions is who they are for.

IAM is primarily concerned with managing access to systems and data for all users and members.

PAM is specifically concerned with employees who require more privileged access – employees such as IT, high-level executives, and finance and HR teams. PAM solutions typically provide granular control over privileged accounts which are commonly targeted in spear phishing attempts.

That’s not to say that there is never some overlap in their uses. For example, when a regular user requires temporary elevated access to sensitive data or systems, PAM systems come into play.

IAM Benefits and Best Practices

IAM solutions have become an essential tool over the years. Organizations of all sizes and complexities should be implementing IAM at some level to manage and secure their digital assets effectively.

In this section, we’ll explore the benefits of IAM and best practices for implementing an effective IAM strategy.

Benefits of IAM

Improved security: IAM solutions provide a robust security framework that aids organizations in mitigating the risk of data breaches and cyber-attacks. This is achieved by controlling access to the organization’s system and information – something that’s increasingly important as more employees access an organization’s system from the edge of the network i.e. employees using mobile devices and personal networks whilst working from home.

Enhanced productivity: IAM solutions can automate previously cumbersome tasks like provisioning and deprovisioning users and managing user access to different systems and applications. This allows IT teams to focus on more pressing tasks.

Compliance: IAM solutions help organizations comply with various regulatory requirements. Compliance with regulations such as HIPAA, and GDPR is made easier when only authorized users can access sensitive data.

Best Practices for Implementing IAM Solutions

Define clear objectives: Define your organization’s objectives and priorities for IAM implementation. Objectives include enhancing security, improving productivity, and reducing costs.

Develop a comprehensive IAM strategy: Develop an IAM strategy that’s in line with objectives your organization has defined as critical. This is achieved by considering the organization’s priorities and taking into account existing infrastructure, systems, and applications.

Choose the right IAM solution: Choose an IAM solution that aligns with your organization’s needs, budget, and goals. When choosing the right IAM solution for your organization it’s important to consider factors such as scalability, ease of use, and vendor support.

If you need help selecting the right IAM solution for your organization, arrange a consultation with our team today.

We’re a trusted implementation partner for leading IAM solutions providers and can guide you in the direction that’s right for your organization.

PAM Benefits and Best Practices

Privileged Access Management (PAM) provides several benefits to an organization – helping them to manage, control and monitor privileged access effectively.

Let’s take a look at the benefits and best practices of PAM.

Benefits of PAM

Improved security: PAM helps to mitigate the risk of privileged account misuse and reduces the attack surface of an organization. It helps to prevent unauthorized access to critical assets and sensitive data.

Compliance: PAM helps organizations comply with regulatory requirements such as HIPAA and GDPR.

Operational efficiency: PAM helps streamline the privileged access management process and reduce the workload of IT teams. PAM solutions enable them to manage access requests, approvals, and revocations more efficiently, with proper procedures and often automations in place to support the processes.

Best Practices for Implementing PAM

Discover and catalog all privileged accounts: Perform a thorough audit to discover all the privileged accounts throughout the organization. This can be used to create an inventory of all the accounts and assign owners for each account.

Enforce strong password policies: Implement strong password policies for privileged accounts, including password complexity requirements, rotation policies, and multi-factor authentication.

IAM vs PAM: FAQs

The Need for Edge Cybersecurity

The proliferation of connected devices, the rise in edge computing, and the cultural shift to remote work have all contributed to the increased need for edge cybersecurity.

Edge devices, such as sensors, smart cameras, and other IoT devices, are often deployed in remote locations, making them vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

Edge computing allows for real-time data processing and analysis, but it also means that more sensitive data is being stored and processed at the edge of an organization’s network that’s potentially less protected.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a significant shift to remote working – sped up significantly by the pandemic.

This means that more employees are accessing company networks and data from their personal devices and outside of the traditional office environment. This introduces a new security challenge and makes it more difficult to maintain consistent security controls across the various networks and devices being utilized.

With a large adoption of cloud services and the use of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications, more and more traffic is being sent directly to the internet from the edge of the network. This means that a lot of data is bypassing traditional security controls, increasing the risk of cyber attacks.

Given the changes in how we do business over the years, the need for edge cybersecurity has never been more critical. Having robust security measures in place to protect your edge devices, data, and networks has never been so important.

Key Considerations and Best Practices for Edge Cybersecurity

Implementing an effective edge cybersecurity program requires a comprehensive approach that takes into account the unique challenges of securing edge devices and networks.

Here are 7 key considerations and best practices to keep in mind when improving your edge cybersecurity.

1. Risk Assessment

The first and most important thing to consider when implementing any form of security policy is to carry out a thorough risk assessment.

Risk assessments are used to identify the potential risks and vulnerabilities at the edge network. This includes identifying the types of data being processed and stored at the edge, the types of devices being used, and the potential entry points for cybercriminals.

2. Device Security

Edge cybersecurity revolves heavily around devices at the edge of the network transmitting valuable company information. Meaning it’s imperative that all devices are secure. This can be achieved by implementing strong authentication mechanisms, secure firmware updates, and continuous monitoring of device activity.

It is also important to limit access to devices and ensure that only authorized personnel have the ability to configure or update them.

Zero trust is used by companies to improve their edge device security. It is a policy that revolves around the principle to:

“Never trust, always verify – every request from every user, in or outside the organization must be authenticated, authorized, and encrypted in real-time”

Implementing Zero Trust alongside your edge cybersecurity efforts means that all users are required to authenticate their identity before access to the organization’s system is granted – regardless of the device they’re using or network they are on.

3. Network Security

Ensuring that the network being used to access company information is secure is a critical consideration when focusing on edge cybersecurity.

What exactly do we mean by edge network?

Well, whenever an employee accesses any form of company information – whether it be company emails, company cloud storage, or remotely accesses the network from outside the office – the network that they use to do this is the edge network.

Protecting the edge network can be achieved by implementing firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, and secure connectivity protocols such as VPNs. This helps prevent unauthorized access to the network and protects against potential cyber-attacks.

4. Data Security

Protection of sensitive data is nothing new in the world of cybersecurity and definitely not specific to edge cybersecurity. However, it definitely shouldn’t be overlooked when looking to improve your edge security efforts.

Protecting sensitive data can be achieved by implementing strong encryption mechanisms, access controls, and data loss prevention measures. It is important to ensure that data is only accessed and processed by authorized personnel and that data is not stored or transmitted in an unsecured manner.

5. Cloud Security

As mentioned earlier, the adoption of cloud services and SaaS applications over the years has become increasingly popular. It’s essential to consider these elements when looking to improve your edge security.

Cloud activity should be monitored and measures put in place to prevent unauthorized access to cloud services.

6. Employee Education

Again, similar to data security, employee education is critical for any security measures and all business divisions.

For edge security in particular, employees need to be educated on the importance of edge cybersecurity with supplemented training on best practices for securing edge devices and networks.

By successfully educating employees, they will be aware of the risks of using personal devices for work-related activities and the best way to secure remote access when outside of the office.

For more on employee training, check out our article on employee cybersecurity training.

7. Regular Monitoring

When implementing edge cybersecurity, it’s no one-time job. It’s important to ensure that the network is regularly monitored for any suspicious activity or breaches.

This can be achieved through the use of security information and event management (SIEM) systems that collect and analyze network logs and events. You could also implement intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS) that can identify and block malicious traffic in real time.

Over the years, artificial intelligence has of course made its way into cybersecurity. Machine learning models have the capability of modeling what is considered normal behavior, allowing for any suspicious, irregular activity on the network to be detected, assigned a threat level, and flagged to IT teams in real time. For more information, check out our article on artificial intelligence in cybersecurity.

Along with monitoring network activity, it’s important to ensure all security policies and procedures are regularly reviewed and updated to ensure that they remain effective in mitigating current and emerging threats.

This includes regular testing and assessing the security of the network through penetration testing and vulnerability assessments. This can be achieved by making use of a specialized red team of ethical hackers that attempt to breach your network (with permission) with the objective of locating any potential weaknesses that could leave you vulnerable to cyber attacks.

By taking a comprehensive approach to edge cybersecurity and implementing these key considerations and best practices, you can better protect your edge devices, data, and network from cyber threats.

88% of companies now consider cybersecurity a business risk rather than an IT problem. From that, it’s clear that the rising number of cyber-attacks globally cannot be ignored by executives.

It is no longer enough to implement basic security measures. Organizations must take a proactive approach to protect their digital assets from cyber threats. This is where the NIST Cybersecurity Framework comes in to provide a structured and flexible approach to managing cybersecurity risks.

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework is a set of guidelines developed by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to help organizations manage and reduce cybersecurity risks as part of their wider goals to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness.

1. Identify

The first component is all about identifying and understanding the assets, data, and systems that need to be protected, as well as the potential threats and vulnerabilities they face.

This is achieved by conducting risk assessments, taking inventory of hardware and software assets, and defining data classifications.

Each core function also contains subcategories. For example, within identity the focus areas are:

• Asset management
• Business environment
• Governance
• Risk assessment
• Risk management strategy
• Supply chain risk management

2. Protect

The second component focuses on implementing safeguards and controls to protect against any potential cyber threats that were identified in the first core function.

This involves developing and implementing security policies like zero trust, conducting employee training, and implementing security measures such as identity and access controls, encryption, multi-factor authentication, and other security technologies.

The focus areas here are:

• Identity and access control
• Awareness and training
• Data security
• Information protection processes and procedures
• Maintenance
• Protective technology

3. Detect

The third component involves detecting cybersecurity events and incidents as quickly as possible.

IBM reported that the average time to identify a breach in 2021 was 212 days. Anything to improve this number could have a significant impact on reducing the financial and reputation losses caused by cybersecurity breaches.

This requires monitoring and detection systems, the adoption of artificial intelligence in cybersecurity, conducting vulnerability assessments, and red-team penetration testing.

Red-team in cybersecurity refers to a team of ethical hackers that attempt to exploit an organization’s weaknesses to raise awareness of any areas that may be susceptible to future breaches.

The focus areas here are:

• Anomalies and events
• Security continuous monitoring
• Detection processes

4. Respond

The fourth component involves responding to any cybersecurity incidents and data breaches in a timely, effective, and cost-efficient manner.

The average cost of a data breach in 2021 was $4.24 million. So, responding to cybersecurity incidents as quickly and as effectively as possible could reduce this number significantly.

This involves establishing a clear and comprehensive incident response plan, conducting regular drills and exercises, and providing appropriate guidance and support to affected stakeholders.

The focus areas here are:

• Response planning
• Communications
• Analysis
• Mitigation
• improvements

5. Recover

The final component is all about the worst-case scenario. How do you recover from a cybersecurity incident and restore normal operations?

This includes developing and implementing business continuity and disaster recovery plans, conducting post-incident reviews, and continuously improving the organization’s cybersecurity posture.

The focus areas here are:

• Recovery planning
• Improvements
• Communications

Each of these components is designed to work cohesively together with the ultimate goal of providing a comprehensive approach to cybersecurity risk management.

By implementing the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, organizations can better:

• Identify and understand their cybersecurity risks
• Protect against potential cyber threats
• Detect incidents in a timely manner
• Respond more effectively to incidents in the event they do occur
• Recover from cyber attacks at a quicker rate

Implementation Tiers

Once you have mapped out your current cybersecurity practices and determined where improvements can be made, you can move on to implementing the NIST Cybersecurity Framework’s Implementation Tiers.

The tiers represent a progression from basic cybersecurity practices to more advanced and adaptive practices.

There are four implementation tiers, each with its own set of characteristics that you can use to assess where your organization currently stands.

Tier 1: Partial

Organizations that have an ad-hoc approach to cybersecurity with an inconsistent process for managing risks, fall into this tier.

Often they’ll have limited awareness of their cybersecurity risks, and their approach to cybersecurity is reactive as opposed to proactive.

Tier 2: Risk-Informed

Organizations that have begun to develop a risk management process for their cybersecurity practices fall into this tier.

They generally have a better understanding of their cybersecurity risks and have implemented some cybersecurity practices.

However, they may still be missing a formalized cybersecurity risk management process, and their cybersecurity practices may not be fully integrated into their overall organizational processes.

Tier 3: Repeatable

Organizations that have a formalized cybersecurity risk management process that is integrated into their overall organizational processes, fall into this tier.

These organizations have implemented a range of cybersecurity practices and are working towards a proactive approach to their cybersecurity efforts.

Generally, they have a good understanding of their cybersecurity risks and are continuously monitoring and improving their cybersecurity practices.

Tier 4: Adaptive

Organizations that have an advanced and proactive approach to cybersecurity, fall into this tier.

Organizations in this tier are constantly monitoring their cybersecurity risks and adapting their cybersecurity practices to address new and emerging threats.

They have a strong cybersecurity risk management process that is fully integrated into their overall organizational processes. Overall, the implementation tiers are used as a roadmap to improve an organization’s cybersecurity practices and move towards a more proactive and adaptive approach to cybersecurity.

Profiles

Profiles are a key component of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.

They’re used to identify opportunities for improving an organization’s cybersecurity by comparing the “current” profile against a “target” profile to establish the existing and desired state of their cybersecurity program.

The NIST framework is voluntary so there is no right or wrong way to select which of the five core functions and subcategories to focus on. Organizations can map out your cybersecurity requirements, mission objectives, and operating methodologies that act as your target-state profile.

Then map out the organization’s current practices against the subcategories of the Framework Core functions. This is what’s referred to as the current-state profile.

By comparing the current cybersecurity activities to the objectives and requirements outlined in the target profile, an organization can identify gaps and determine a roadmap that prioritizes efforts and improvements accordingly.