It’s your worst nightmare, and a cyber attacker’s dream come true: the credentials of a privileged user getting stolen or otherwise compromised. After all, privileged users can go practically anywhere and do anything in your network as they go about the business of configuring servers and systems and setting security policies.
That freedom is not inherently a bad thing—they are, after all, just doing their jobs—but it does have a dark side: the high level of risk it creates if cyber attackers get their hands on those credentials. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to reduce the risk of a breach involving a privileged user’s credentials.
Make Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) a Must
Next time someone enters a privileged user’s password for access to sensitive data, double-check that they’re really who they say they are by asking them to prove it with another form of authentication—and locking them out if they can’t oblige. In addition, because privileged users tend to be admins working on many systems at one time, look for a solution that makes access secure yet simple, with a variety of convenient authentication methods.
For example, let’s say your…
