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Just think of our day-to-day life. Typically, we all have common passwords for email accounts, social media accounts and bank accounts, which can result in a nightmare, if compromised. On a personal level, if a password breach can affect us so gravely, what would happen if the same happens to privileged accounts for a large enterprise?
Did you know that poor password management is one of the biggest sources of data breach? Many surveys show that more than 75% of times hacking of systems and misuse of confidential information arises from poor password management.
There are hundreds of privileged passwords in an enterprise network. These login credentials provide access to privileged accounts, the gateway to confidential business information. One privileged password abuse or misuse has a potential to bring down the entire IT infrastructure.
Now the question is why and how organizations are challenged again and again by password vulnerabilities? Some of the most common mistakes are as follows:
- A study conducted by ARCON ‘Protecting Data’ in 2017 found that the majority of organizations manage (change) desktop default administrator id and password manually, which is a cause for concern. The risk being from compromised insiders posing the biggest threat to an organizations’ critical data
- No secure mechanism to store privileged passwords
- Lack of password change policy
- There is an absence of password vaulting
- Organizations fail to automate tasks like generations and randomization of privileged passwords to ensure security
How to secure privileged passwords?
A single password breach can lead to a cyber catastrophe in an organization. With the changing IT landscape, the number of privileged accounts is rising exponentially. The vulnerability of passwords is more evident in a shared and distributed environment. If privileged accounts or credentials are shared by multiple users, information assets are more prone to breaches. This has led to the necessity of stringent security measures such as managing passwords and control user activities. ARCON, being a pioneer in information security solutions, always propagates implementing proper password protection mechanisms, one the prerequisites for robust Privileged Access Management (PAM). Proper password management is one of the most crucial security practices for enterprises to protect data assets from malicious insiders, unauthorized third-party users and organized cybercriminals.
ARCON | PAM offers a robust Password Vault, an automated engine that stores, generates and frequently randomizes passwords. It creates a centralized secure repository of passwords for multiple systems so that no password can be duplicated under any circumstance. Privilege password vaulting assists the IT administrators to adopt a robust privileged access management practice.
The bottom-line
Malicious actors always target vulnerable privileged passwords to access confidential business information. ARCON | PAM’s Password Vault offers an extra security layer around the privileged passwords to ensure authorized access to systems and mitigate data breach threats.
ARCON is a leading enterprise risk control solutions provider, specializing in risk-predictive technologies. ARCON | User Behaviour Analytics enables to monitor end-user activities in real time. ARCON | Privileged Access Management reinforces access control and mitigates data breach threats. ARCON | Endpoint Privilege Management mitigates risks arising out of endpoints. ARCON | Secure Compliance Management is a vulnerability assessment tool.
