Active Directory (AD) is a useful service that helps organizations manage identities and control access to network resources, thus improving corporate cybersecurity. However, when poorly managed, AD can be exploited in a way that could harm an organization’s sensitive assets and operational resilience. In this article, we briefly define what Active Directory is, list its main services, and discuss possible threats.

Privileged Access Management (PAM) is a comprehensive framework of policies, strategies, and technologies designed to regulate, oversee, and fortify access to critical resources for human and service accounts.

In a rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape, organizations across all industries and sizes face an ever-growing array of sophisticated threats. Privileged accounts, in particular, have become prime targets for hackers, with nearly every major breach in recent years involving unauthorized access. Breaches caused by phishing and compromised credentials (the most common type of attack) cost an average of $4.76M and take almost 11 months to resolve.

Identity and access management (IAM) provides a consistent, centralized solution to manage user identities and automate access control throughout the organization. This helps security leaders introduce role-based access control and meet governance, risk, and compliance goals. Your organization may already have centralized management policies in place. For example, requiring employees to use a VPN when accessing company assets remotely shows an IAM solution in action.

At AWS Re:Invent 2021 in the keynote address, AWS CTO Werner Vogels, invested a significant chunk of time in zooming in on the Identity and Access Management (IAM) of what he called the Everywhere Cloud. He emphasized that while often being underestimated or overlooked - IAM, remains a critical aspect of our overall security posture. ‍ ‍

As organizations seek out solutions to secure their hybrid and remote workplace, some daily tasks like signing into 10, 20, or 30 applications can really interfere with employee productivity. The fatigue of remembering so many passwords for so many applications nearly always leads to undesirable password behaviors such as password re-use and choosing weak passwords, plus the annoyance of forgotten passwords and the burden of resets.