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Security Risks of Not Having PAM in Place
Privileged access is an integral element of business operations. An enterprise privileged account comes with unique permissions to manage critical systems, databases, networks, and software. These elevated access permissions enable users to perform administrative tasks and access sensitive systems.
The enterprise privileged access landscape has been changing with evolving IT roles and the introduction of innovative enterprise functions to manage operations.
Numerous privileged accounts—both human and non-human—exist in today’s enterprise networks, including those used by system administrators, IT staff, third-party vendors, and service accounts.
If user activity on these privileged accounts is not closely monitored and controlled, exploitable gaps can be created in the IT security posture. In addition, threat actors often target privileged accounts once they gain access to a network to amass greater power and influence inside an organisation. These scenarios represent significant security risks for any organisation.
Hence, developing a solid Privileged Access Management (PAM) strategy is more critical than ever. It helps improve the access security posture, prevent unauthorised access and data loss, reduce the risk of insider attacks, and improve incident response.
What Happens When Privileged Access Management Is Not in Place?
Lack of Visibility
A robust privileged access management system enables better visibility of an enterprise’s access security posture and existing privileged accounts across its infrastructure. But what if PAM is not in place?
- An organisation’s vulnerability to breach grows when privileged accounts, such as service accounts, shared accounts, or default passwords, are either forgotten or left unrecorded. The attack surface increases with the undiscovered privileged accounts, leading to higher security risks.
- Lack of visibility makes it hard to adequately monitor and audit privileged account usage, a significant problem. If organisations cannot detect unauthorised activity, the damage of a cyberattack can become serious.
- Businesses are frequently subject to a wide range of compliance regulations. Without insight into privileged accounts, it is harder to prove compliance, leading to audit failures and possible fines from regulatory bodies – yet another example of compliance-related security risks.
Privilege Escalation Attacks
Companies become vulnerable to privilege escalation attacks because of a lack of attention to appropriate permissions. When an attacker intrudes on a standard user account and escalates access rights, they commit a privilege escalation. In most cases, the goals of these attacks are data exfiltration, service disruption, and backdoor installation for running prolonged attacks.
Two forms of privilege escalation attacks exist:
- Horizontal privilege escalation—an attacker hijacks another account and abuses its authorised privileges.
- Vertical privilege escalation—attackers try to gain greater privileges with a compromised account. To get administrative benefits or root access, they may, for instance, hijack a standard user account on a network.
The threats posed by privilege escalation attacks on businesses can be devastating:
- Threat actors frequently use privilege escalation attacks as a springboard for further lateral movement inside a network. The more power an attacker has, the more systems they can compromise, the more they can control, and the more valuable the targets they can access. The entire system or network might be compromised when privilege escalation attacks succeed.
- Threat actors who gain administrative access to a system may implement backdoors, change settings, or deactivate security measures. They can impersonate internal users or admins, making it hard to identify their malicious actions. As a result, insider threats may emerge as attackers abuse their elevated access to steal confidential information, alter data, or sabotage systems.
Challenges with Password Management
Without a Privileged Access Management (PAM) strategy, password management and access security become enormous obstacles. Some of the difficulties that businesses may encounter include the following:
- Without proper password management policies, enterprise users may resort to using easy-to-guess, repetitive, and old passwords that are easy to guess and brute-force. Weak passwords allow attackers to break into systems and steal sensitive information.
- When sufficient PAM controls are not in place, password sharing can become prevalent for convenience or operational reasons. Tracking user behaviour becomes complex, and hacked credentials can be used maliciously across networks. With shared passwords, privileged access security can be compromised.
- Retrieving critical passwords and secrets during break-glass situations and downtimes becomes challenging. This can disrupt operations and incur losses.
Privileged User Governance Gaps and Security Risks
When governance standards are not adequately managed, privileged users, organisational security, compliance, and risk management suffer. The absence of such policies presents difficulties and potential outcomes.
Lack of privileged user governance is a common cause of audit and compliance lapses. A lack of policies leads to non-compliance with security standards such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS. Legal repercussions, monetary fines, reputational damage, and missed business opportunities are all possible outcomes of failing to comply.
Gaps in Privileged Account Lifecycle Management
A weak privileged account lifecycle management strategy renders a company’s security vulnerable.
- Multiple systems and applications may generate and provide privileged accounts inconsistently without a lifecycle management procedure. This leads to inconsistency in enforcing security regulations and a general lack of uniformity.
- The number of privileged accounts can grow to an excessive level if they are not reviewed and audited regularly. Because each account is a possible point of entry for hackers, this increases the attack surface.
- With a proper PAM strategy, enterprises can streamline their user account management processes and prevent accounts from remaining active and vulnerable for longer periods of time.
Targeted Attacks and Insider Threats
When a PAM system is not in place, assessing the existing gaps and vulnerabilities in an enterprise’s security posture becomes challenging.
Threat actors specifically look for exploitable gaps to gain access to privileged accounts, as they enable complete control over critical systems and data administration. On the other hand, insiders (authorised users) with existing access to enterprise systems, networks, or data may knowingly or unknowingly pose threats.
In this case, a PAM solution lets businesses monitor and restrict privileged user actions with policies such as zero trust and JIT. This helps restrict user access based on needs and authenticates every access request to allow only authorised users.
About Sectona
Sectona incorporates cutting-edge features to protect enterprise privileged access from a constantly expanding security risks. The Sectona Security Platform is designed to serve today’s enterprise settings, requiring specialised approaches to protect critical access and endpoints. By implementing robust PAM strategies, organisations can reduce security risks and enhance overall resilience. Learn more about Sectona here.
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- © 2025 Sectona Technologies Private Limited. All rights reserved. All trademarks held by their respective owners.
- Privacy Policy
- Terms
- Eula
- Responsible Disclosure