The role of real-time privileged access in security evolution

ReportApril 15, 2024Hacker NewsActive Directory/Attack Surface

To minimize the risk of privilege abuse, a trend in the privileged access management (PAM) solutions market involves implementing just-in-time (JIT) privileged access. This approach to privileged identity management is designed to mitigate the risks associated with long-term advanced access by granting permissions only temporarily when necessary, rather than providing users with ongoing high-level permissions. By adopting this strategy, organizations can enhance security, minimize the window of opportunity for potential attackers, and ensure that users only access privileged resources when necessary.

What is JIT?

JIT privileged access configuration involves temporarily granting privileged access to users, consistent with the concept of least privilege. This policy provides users with only the lowest level of access they need to perform their tasks, and only for the time required to do so.

One of the key benefits of a JIT configuration is its ability to reduce the risk of privilege escalation and minimize the attack surface for credential-based attacks. By eliminating persistent permissions, or permissions that an account has when inactive use, JIT configuration limits the window of opportunity for malicious actors to exploit these accounts. A JIT configuration disrupts an attacker’s reconnaissance attempts because it only adds users to privileged groups when an unsolicited access request occurs. This prevents attackers from identifying potential targets.

How to implement JIT provisioning using Safeguard

Safeguard is a privileged access management solution that provides powerful support for JIT settings across multiple platforms, including Active Directory and Linux/Unix environments. With Safeguard, organizations can create regular user accounts in Active Directory without requiring special permissions. These accounts are then placed under the management of Safeguard for Privileged Identity Manager and remain disabled until initiated as part of the access request workflow.

After an access request is created, Safeguard for Privileged Identity Manager automatically activates the user account, adds it to the designated privileged group (such as domain administrators), and grants the account the necessary access rights. Once an access request is completed, either through a configured timeout period or the user rechecks credentials, the user account is removed from the privileged group and deactivated, minimizing the risk of any potential security threats.

How to use activity roles to enhance JIT provisioning

When used in conjunction with One Identity’s market-leading Active Directory management tool, Active Roles ARS, organizations can take their JIT configurations to an even higher level of security and customization. Active Roles supports more complex JIT provisioning use cases, allowing organizations to automate account activation, group membership management, and Active Directory attribute synchronization.

For example, the Safeguard access request workflow can trigger active roles to not only activate user accounts and assign permissions, but also to update virtual attributes in Active Directory and synchronize changes across the entire environment.

in conclusion

Prompt provisioning of privileged access is a key component of a comprehensive privileged access management strategy. By implementing JIT provisioning, organizations can reduce the risk of privilege abuse, enhance security, and ensure that users only access privileged resources when necessary. Combining Safeguard with Active Roles, organizations can implement powerful JIT configuration policies to enhance security and reduce risk.