CyberArk Privileged Access Management(PAM) Implementation
- Kanchan Khatri
- Apr 8
- 7 min read
Data breaches and insider threats continue to grow in this digital world. This makes it even more important to secure sensitive data and the critical system of any organization. The main reason for such exploits is privileged access, acting as a gateway to attack the world of cybersecurity.
To provide a solution to the privileged access related threats, CyberArk comes to the rescue. CyberArk is a popular and reliable name in providing Privileged Access Management solutions that safeguard privileged accounts, handle sensitive data, and ensure compliance across diverse IT environments.
In this blog, we are going to cover every detail of the CyberArk implementation, which forms one of the most important parts in onboarding CyberArk solutions.
Implementing CyberArk PAM
Multiple stages are involved in CyberArk PAM implementation, which involves strategic planning, proper development, and timely management. For successful CyberArk PAM implementation, the following steps must be followed carefully:
1. Strategic Planning And Assessment
The first step of CyberArk implementation begins with a comprehensive planning and assessment process. This forms a base for a secure and smooth development process.
Key Activities:
1.1 Privileged Account Inventory: Identify and categorize all privileged accounts in the organization’s IT infrastructure to start with implementation. These accounts are of different categories, having access to sensitive and crucial data such as administrative, service, application, and system, in short,
1.2 Compliance and Risk Assessment: organizations' CyberArk development needs to be aligned with their compliance obligations like PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, or SOX. These regulations are for the purpose of providing security and granting access rights in a controlled manner.
1.3 Establish Clear Security Objectives: Prior to deployment, it is critical to establish clear security objectives, such as safeguarding confidential information, managing high-level access risks, automating credential rotation, etc.
1.4 Stakeholder Involvement: A proper collaboration between key stakeholders that includes security teams, IT operations, and compliance officers for the purpose of gathering static and dynamic requirements and ensuring buy-in across the organization.
2. CyberArk Architecture Design
Once the planning phase is completed, the next step is to design the CyberArk PAM architecture. Following are the key steps involved in designing the architecture of the solution along with selecting the right deployment model, connecting the solution with our current infrastructure, and more:
Key Points to Consider:
2.1. Essential Parts of CyberArk PAM:
a. Vault: A safe, centralized data storage place for securing privileged credentials, encryption keys, and other sensitive information.
b. Privileged Session Manager (PSM): activities of limited and restricted sessions are recorded and monitored to stop unwelcomed access by early threat detection and prevent limited access.
c. Central Policy Manager (CPM): Based on already defined policies, passwords are managed and rotated periodically within the system.
d. Password Vault Web Access (PVWA): This web-based tool allows you to manage and receive the relevant data related to privileged accounts.
2.2. High Availability and Scalability:
Vault and CPM components are deployed in high availability configurations to be continuously available and prevent downtime, especially for critical environments.
2.3. Integration with already present Infrastructure:
Make sure CyberArk integrates with the organization’s IT infrastructure, which includes cloud environments like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud for hybrid IT management, active records for authenticating users, and SIEM systems for real-time event monitoring in a smooth and easy manner.
2.4. Governance and security policies:
A primary component of security is ensuring the separation of duties and preparing access policies based on the principle of least privilege, basically limiting the access rights. To elevate access on a temporary basis, consider implementing time-based or emergency access.
3. Installation and Configuration
After architecture is completely finalized, it is time to install and configure the CyberArk component. The solution is deployed and customized here based on the organization's specific security needs while being regulatory compliant.
Key Steps:
3.1. Vault Installation:
Install the CyberArk Vault in a secure and dedicated environment. To protect this centralized storage, it must adopt strong encryption protocols (e.g., AES-256) for managing sensitive and crucial data.
3.2. Configure Central Policy Manager (CPM):
Enable CPM to automate the password management system. Along with enabling CPM, policies are defined for password rotation amongst different departments.
3.3. Set Up Privileged Session Manager (PSM):
Initiate PSM installation to record and monitor sessions and system capabilities. These recorded activities of users with privileged access are tracked for the purpose of compliance and forensics.
3.4. Deploy Password Vault Web Access (PVWA):
It is a primary interface for users to interact with the solution where users request sensitive login details and data to access high-level sessions. To ensure that credentials are shared amongst the users based on their role, neither more or less access, role-based access control (RBAC) is enabled.
4. Registering Privileged Accounts and Users
Once the configuration of the solution is completed, onboarding accounts, systems, and users into the CyberArk comes next. This phase becomes really important because all the basic and necessary resources are integrated with the PAM solution here.
Key Steps:
4.1 Bringing privileged Accounts into the solution:
The First thing to do is identify and import all the top-tier accounts like admin, root, and service accounts into the centralized repository, i.e., vault. This could be performed manually or by using automated discovery tools that primarily scan networks to look for potential threats.
4.2 Setting User Roles and Permissions:
For this, preparing rules and guidelines in the form of policies is important as this ensures that that users have the amount of access that is necessary and sufficient to perform their job, neither more nor less. This is popularly known as Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), which makes security management easy and efficient.
4.3 Integrating system to CyberArk:
This step is performed to properly manage and audit all the access to the high-level account. Also, for cloud environments like AWS, Azure, and GCP, make sure they integrate with the solution easily and smoothly.
4.4 Add Users:
There are different categories of users, like administrators, support staff, etc, that should be added to the CyberArk solution. To perform tasks based on the role, sensitive data and login-in rights should be provided to users so that they won't take undue advantage of their position.
5. Authenticating and Verifying
After onboarding users to the solution along with main elements being in place, it becomes really important to authenticate, verify, and validate that the solution is functioning properly and in a manner as intended. By all means, the main objective is to secure the overall system.
Key Authenticating Activities:
5.1 Testing Access Control Rights:
This authenticates that users are only eligible to have access to the accounts and system they are authorized to manage. To check that there is no loophole in between, penetration testing is performed.
5.2 Password Rotation Verification:
This verification process tests the automated password rotation, which helps in regulating that passwords are being updated as guided by the policy in place. It is important to keep a check that the system continues to function uninterrupted even after a password change.
5.3 Session Tracking and Evaluation:
Check the PSM to make sure that privileged access sessions are recorded, tracked, and audited carefully without a lag to prepare relevant and valid compliance reports.
5.4 Test Regarding Emergency Access:
Conduct tests for emergency access procedures to verify that emergency accounts are properly monitored and that access is revoked once the emergency is over.
6. Training and User Adoption
After all the above effort, educating users for smoother adoption of the CyberArk PAM solution becomes paramount. Thus, all the stakeholders involved, from the bottom to the top level, need to be provided with proper training. This will indeed ensure the long-term success of the overall security solution.
Key Steps:
6.1 Administrative Training:
Administrators need to be trained to take care of the configuration, management, and troubleshooting of the platform. They should be trained enough in order to configure policies, manage important data, and respond to incidents in a timely manner, when and where needed.
6.2 Training End-Users:
Educating the end-users on how to request and manage data related to privileged accounts through PVWA is necessary. Along with this, teach the best practices to access, use, and manage sensitive data.
6.3 Documentation:
Make sure that in-depth user manuals, policies, and procedures are readily available. These documents should cover common scenarios, access request workflows, and incident response protocols.
7. Continious and Regular Monitoring Plus Optimization
Once launched and implemented, regularly monitor and optimize the complete system so that its productivity and efficiency remain intact.
Key Activities:
7.1 Regular Monitoring:
Try to make the best use of the platform’s already-present monitoring tools to keep track of all the activities associated with privileged accounts. This will help in detecting unusual activities and threats to act in real time to cybersecure the organization.
7.2 Regular and Timely Audits:
Regularly perform audits to make sure that users’ access is limited to the required levels without allowing additional privileged data and access. Perform regular reviews of password policies and access controls to make sure that they stay in line with security best practices.
7.3 Updates and Patches:
Always be updated with CyberArk’s latest updates and patches to protect the system against new or updated vulnerabilities. Reviewing the complete setup on a regular basis helps in the complete optimization for security and compliance.
7.4 Scalability and Adaptation:
With the organizational growth, our solution should evolve and update in parallel to accommodate new users, systems, and cloud environments as and when required.
Conclusion
CyberArk Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution is itself an important step towards securing any organization's sensitive systems, reducing insider threats, and being compliant with the regulatory norms. By following the above steps in the given order, from planning and architecture design to deployment, testing, and continuous management, organizations can successfully deploy CyberArk and achieve the required security setup related to privileged access.
A successfully implemented CyberArk solution helps in securing and safeguarding crucial assets and increases efficiency, resulting in improved productivity. Automating password management and real-time tracking of sessions has strengthened the whole cybersecurity approach. No doubt that CyberArk PAM is a very wise investment for organizations to confidently manage and secure privileged access in an increasingly complex technological world.
If your organization is looking to implement a CyberArk PAM solution into your system to provide a complete security solution, then we at IDMEXPRESS are here for you. Our team of experts provides the best customized IAM and cybersecurity solutions based on your needs, scale, and requirements. CONTACT US TODAY TO CYBERSECURE YOUR TOMORROW!
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