Building Endpoint Resilience with the Least Privileges

Cyber threats continue to overwhelm enterprises with new threat vectors, malware, and attack patterns every single day. Endpoints are becoming the primary target for sophisticated threats, elevating the need for proactive security strategies. One such strategy is to leverage the least privileges and solve the ever-evolving end device security challenges from foundations.

In this blog, we’ll talk about how enterprises can adopt the least privileges to build a resilient endpoint security posture.

What is Endpoint Security?

Endpoint security concerns the security of end-user devices such as laptops, desktops, mobile phones, servers, embedded systems, POS (Point of Sale), IoT (Internet of Things) devices, and so on. It is an essential subset of the entire cybersecurity flow that protects enterprise entry points from incidents, malware infiltration and data extraction.

Just as each organ in the human body performs its designated function and creates a flawless system, each endpoint receives permissions only for completing its designated task, ensuring efficiency and security resilience.

Endpoint Security comprises several sub-components, including Data Loss Prevention, Endpoint Privilege Management (EPM), Endpoint Detection and Response, Extended Detection and Response, Patch Management, etc. 

The Least Privileges Principle & its Role

The Least Privilege Principle (POLP) is a computer security concept associated with the Zero-Trust strategy. It states not to trust any entity inside or outside organizational networks and emphasizes “never trust, always verify.”

POLP dictates that users be provided minimum privileged access to enterprise resources to perform their jobs. Other critical benefits of having the least privileges in place include:

Prevents Malware Propagation within Networks

Implementing the least privileges helps contain the spread of malware by limiting its ability to infect critical systems. For example, a phishing attack on a financial institution may compromise the credentials of a marketing employee. The malware cannot infiltrate core financial databases and transaction systems when this employee can only access marketing tools. This move isolates the threats and prevents them from spreading across the network.

Minimizes the Enterprise Attack Surface

Lowering the privileged user permission sprawl reduces gaps and vulnerabilities in enterprise security architecture. Consider a healthcare provider where only IT staff can access the back-end infrastructure supporting patient records. If a cyberattack compromises a nurse’s account, the attacker cannot exploit the back-end systems because the nurse cannot access them. The limited permissions prevent lateral movement within the network and reduce critical infrastructure exposure.

Enhanced Data Categorization and Control

Least privileges ensure that access to sensitive data is more granular and that only authorized individuals can access specific data types. In a government agency, for instance, an employee working in procurement would only have access to financial contracts and supplier information. In contrast, a security professional might only access event logs and threat-intel data. The separation ensures that sensitive data remains categorized with highly controlled data access.

Helps in Cybersecurity Compliance and Auditing Efforts

The least privileges help secure compliance with several high-level cybersecurity regulations. For example, a corporation following GDPR standards ensures that only employees in their European office access EU citizen data. The limited access helps in auditing using comprehensive logs of who accessed what data and when.

The precise access control simplifies compliance reviews, reduces audit durations, and helps adhere to regulatory mandates such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, or ISO 27001.

The Working of POLP

Identifying and categorizing user roles and permissions

Mapping out each endpoint and the user to their access requirements based on the designated roles within the organizational network.

Implementing granular access controls

Administering strict access policies to confirm that the users and devices have only the minimum permissions needed.

Frequent review and amendment of permissions

Regularly monitoring and updating access rights to prevent privilege creep and reaffirm compliance with security policies.

In the Privileged Access Management realm, the least privileges help authenticate users, govern privileges, and provision and de-provision access rights based on user needs. Similarly, POLP can be leveraged to reduce privilege creep and enforce strict control over admin rights on endpoints.

Increasing Endpoints, Privileges and the Need for Security

With BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), remote users, and third-party vendors, enterprise endpoints are exponentially increasing. By 2030, the number of connected devices is expected to reach 29 billion. As the connectivity increases, the attack surface for enterprises expands exponentially.

The major challenges are the rise of malware, phishing attacks, insider threats, and the increased risk of zero-day exploits that benefit from unknown vulnerabilities.

According to Statista, a whopping eight million records were breached by the fourth quarter of 2023. And as of 2023, the average data breach cost across businesses worldwide remained at 4.45 million USD.

A Forrester research report says 80% of data breaches involve compromised privileged credentials.

This indicates the need for a robust Endpoint Privilege Management (EPM) system to protect the highly targeted privileged endpoints from gaps and vulnerabilities.

Addressing Endpoint Security Challenges with Least Privileges

Least privilege implementation is a proactive approach that addresses the security concerns of endpoint protection with robust Endpoint Privilege Management (EPM). A POLP-enabled EPM strategy covers all endpoints, applications, and systems, allowing controlled application access and accountable local admin rights.

EPM includes application control features that restrict which applications can run on endpoints. This reduces the risk of malicious software being executed on the end-user devices and upholds the integrity of secure enterprise operating environments.

In non-EPM environments, users must wait through those never-ending times for the IT team to grant temporary administrative privileges. The anxiety surges more during emergency break-glass situations. However, with a powerful EPM in place, users can get permissions in real-time for specific tasks with “dynamic privilege escalation” capability. This saves time and increases productivity.

Moreover, EPM monitors administrator rights on endpoints and ensures that the elevated access of all users is tracked and logged. For example, if a system administrator performs critical updates, a robust EPM solution records actions, which results in better accountability and helps identify any unauthorized changes made by admins.

EPM also addresses offline scenarios where users may not have immediate access to the corporate network. In such cases, EPM can provide temporary access based on predefined policies.

As an add-on, having a robust Endpoint Privilege Management strategy reduces human error by automating the privilege assignment process. IT teams can trust their EPM solution to grant or revoke admin rights automatically after task completion.

Sectona’s Approach to Enhance Endpoint Security

One popular opinion is that managing privileges on endpoints spread across geographies takes time and can result in gaps.

But,

The Sectona Security Platform automates the implementation of the least privileges on endpoints with its robust Endpoint Privilege Management solution, reducing human errors and saving time.

For example, the Application Control module of the EPM solution helps manage applications with static policies or adaptive learning modes with clearly defined allow/deny policies. The module also streamlines workflows and efficiently enables real-time application analysis.

Sectona’s EPM enhances password management and account security by removing local admin rights from endpoints and securely managing and rotating local admin passwords.

The tool saves time, facilitates better visibility, and aids in compliance with its application monitoring and auditing capabilities by using customizable dashboards that generate automated in-depth activity reports.

To know more about Sectona’s Endpoint Privilege Management solution, please visit our assistance page.