Enterprise digital infrastructure has become more complex and costly to secure, manage and support. Contributing factors include multiple clouds, expanding enterprise perimeters and employees working remotely.
The global pandemic has forced many enterprises from dipping their toes into modern digital infrastructure to jumping headfirst into digital transformation waters. According to a 2020 Gartner report, 91% of organizations are engaged in some type of digital transformation, making it even more critical to protect corporate systems and data, which requires security transformation.
This means virtually every part of digital infrastructure will converge with security to mitigate the risk of growing threat vectors. Cyber defenses need to be fully integrated into every aspect of the business to have maximum impact. Preventing a cyberattack could potentially save $1.4 million per attack.
Digital transformation programs become even more complex with the engagement of multiple IAM vendors and array of network and security products. These siloed solutions have discrete form factors, configurations and management interfaces that make it difficult to optimize business value. They create business inefficiencies that when combined with a growing security talent gap, put digital infrastructure at greater risk and adding unnecessary cost. Managed PAM makes absolute sense for enterprises to ensure digital transformation programs are secure and maximize business value.
Here are three ways to ensure managed PAM delivers both:
1.) Managed PAM and the Burgeoning Cloud Managed Services Market
Global changes brought on by the pandemic, and the need to leverage digital infrastructure to stay competitive, are changing the way business operates. Organizations are rethinking their workplace environments taking advantage of the benefits afforded by modern technology.
Cloud-native services are fundamental to the digital transformation economy, where anything can benefit by utilizing cloud- managed services. Gartner estimates cloud-managed services will reach $80 billion by 2024. The demand is coming from the need for greater agility and the offloading of increasingly complex digital infrastructure.
Our hyperconnected world relies upon digital technology to interconnect people, organizations, and machines. This digital economy challenges traditional notions about how businesses are structured, how organizations interact, and how users access services, information, and products.
In response, managed service providers (MSPs) are utilizing the agility and the economies of scale advantages of cloud services. Cloud-driven managed IAM (Identity and Access Management) services integrate privileged access management (PAM) and identity governance (IGA) tools. On top of these core services, they package capabilities that operationalize, monitor, and onboard enterprise applications. To provide greater clarity on the business return on these investments, they build –in KPI’s to measure IAM performance and success, based upon business goals and objectives.
The rapid nature of technology transformation has exacerbated the need to hire people with domain expertise in multiple areas, who can integrate everything, and secure valuable, yet vulnerable, enterprise assets. Unfortunately, finding, training, and keeping skilled people, particularly those with cybersecurity experience, is a continuous challenge. This is one of the reasons why managed PAM is a fast-growing area.
2.) Managed PAM Makes Digital Infrastructure Safe and Easy to Consume
Cloud-driven PAM managed services control user and machine information to securely authenticate and authorize access to corporate assets. The entire infrastructure is integrated and orchestrated within a single platform, with visibility through a single-pane-of-glass. This simplifies the way identity services are consumed and paid for, with a single contract, and one bill for all services.
Managed PAM services provide:
- Off-loading of time-intensive and productivity draining tasks managing identity and privileged account infrastructure.
- IT (Information Technology) and security teams with the time and resources to focus on serving their employees and customers
- A frictionless user experience that is simplified, easy to use, and safe
- An OpEx financial model based on a subscription, to alleviate heavy upfront costs
3.) Privileged Access Overcomes Operational Challenges and the Security Skills Gap
Nowhere is the workforce skills gap more evident than in the information security sector. Cybersecurity Ventures estimates there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs globally this year. Compare that with the 63% increase of cybers attacks related to the pandemic! Enterprises cannot afford to let the skill gap affect the security of their networks and systems and must look at alternatives. Organizations also need to focus on their core business, and align their time and resources to that end, to remain competitive. To keep up with technology advances and regulatory compliance, they need experts with skills in security, identity, compliance, regional requirements, application integration, and more.
Managed PAM services help to alleviate the security worker talent shortage. They allow organizations to take advantage of their cost savings and operational efficiencies by leveraging best-in-class technologies, best practices, out-of-the-box workflows, and deep domain expertise. They no longer need to internally manage and coordinate multiple vendors, migrate legacy systems to the cloud, conduct upgrades, and ensure a quality user experience.
Benefits of a Managed Service Provider for PAM
MSPs bring the necessary people, processes, and technology together. They integrate PAM solutions into existing services, map them to business and security programs, and operationalize them. Working with a trusted PAM managed service offloads many costs of ownership tasks. They ensure reliable, and consistent testing, patching, monitoring, maintenance, and upgrades.
A strong security posture begins with effective identity and access management solutions. PAM managed services enable organizations to maximize the value they receive from cohesive technology services that reduce risk, improve the user experience, and cost-effectively support their businesses.
To learn more about how Simeio can help bring your privileges under control, click here to register to attend a webinar with Simeio and our partner and PAM-market leader Cyberark.
- Contributed by Dr. James Quick
