Privileged Identity Management

Privileged identity management (PIM) is a domain within identity management focused on the special requirements of powerful accounts within the IT infrastructure of an enterprise. It is frequently used as an information security and governance tool to help companies in meeting compliance regulations and to prevent internal data breaches through the use of privileged accounts. The management of privileged identities can be automated to follow pre-determined or customized policies and requirements for an organization or industry.

See also privileged password management – since the usual strategy for securing privileged identities is to periodically scramble their passwords, securely store current password values and control disclosure of those passwords.

Different market participants refer to products in this category using similar but distinct terminology. As a result, some analyst firms refer to this market as "PxM" indicating multiple possible words for "x":

The commonality is that a shared framework controls the access of authorized users and other identities to elevated privileges across multiple systems deployed in an organization.

A privileged identity management technology needs to accommodate for the special needs of privileged accounts, including their provisioning and life cycle management, authentication, authorization, password management, auditing, and access controls.

Unmanaged privileged identities can be exploited by both insiders and external attackers. If they are not monitored, held accountable, and actively controlled, malicious insiders, including system administrators, can steal sensitive information or cause significant damage to systems.

A 2009 report prepared for a US congressional committee by Northrop Grumman Corporation details how US corporate and government networks are compromised by overseas attackers who exploit unsecured privileged identities. According to the report, "US government and private sector information, once unreachable or requiring years of expensive technological or human asset preparation to obtain, can now be accessed, inventoried, and stolen with comparative ease using computer network operations tools."

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Wikipedia