After this lesson, you will be able to: Explain why privileged accounts are top targets and how PAM tools mitigate that risk.
A regular user account, compromised, is a problem. A privileged account, compromised, is a catastrophe. Privileged Access Management (PAM) tools exist to wrap admin accounts in extra controls, vaults, just-in-time elevation, session recording.
Privileged accounts (Domain Admin, root, AWS root, database superuser) can do anything, install software, read all data, disable security tools. Almost every catastrophic breach in the news involved an attacker reaching a privileged account. Protecting them is disproportionately important.
Password vaulting, the actual admin password is stored in a vault (CyberArk, HashiCorp Vault, Delinea), not in anyone's brain. Just-in-time elevation, an admin requests temporary admin privileges, gets them for 30 minutes, then they expire. Session recording, every command run during a privileged session is recorded, watchable like a video. Approval workflows, high-risk actions require a second person to approve.
Cloud and DevOps environments add new privileged identities: service accounts, CI/CD runners, infrastructure-as-code roles. Modern PAM extends to these, for example, AWS IAM Identity Center with permission sets that auto-expire, or HashiCorp Vault's dynamic credentials.
Pick the one that eliminates standing privilege.
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