Maintaining Data Integrity with Privileged Access Management

Without the proper security solutions in place like monitoring and access management, your organization’s data integrity could be at risk.

For many enterprise organizations, data is the critical asset at the core of business operations. Ensuring that sensitive data is protected is extremely important for a business’ reputation and to meet compliance regulations. Without the proper security solutions in place like monitoring and access management, your organization’s data integrity could be at risk.

Data is the critical asset at the core of business operations.

What is Data Integrity?

Data integrity is broadly defined as “the maintenance of, and the assurance of the accuracy and consistency of, data over its entire life-cycle, and is a critical aspect of the design, implementation, and usage of any system which stores, processes, or retrieves data.” Maintaining data integrity is important in a wide range of industries. In the case of IT security, it relates to the accuracy and consistency of data throughout an organization’s information technology systems.

Decentralized Information Systems

Part of what makes ensuring data integrity increasingly difficult is the decentralization of information operations worldwide. Cloud technology and remote workstations are convenient but present new vulnerabilities. As these technologies get ever-more prevalent, many organizations are effectively decentralizing their information systems without sufficiently increasing security budgets and tools to cope with the increased area of attack.

Decentralized information systems leave enterprises vulnerable to security threats.

Data Integrity Vulnerabilities

Decentralized information systems require additional security measures. According to ISACA, also known as the Information Systems Audit and Control Association, there is a range of actions that can lead to data integrity loss with these new operations including:

• Changes to access and privilege permissions
• The inability to track, manage, and change privileged passwords
• Weak or insufficient user verification practices
• Misconfigured security devices and software
• Unauthorized devices or applications connecting to the corporate network

Without the proper security controls in place, your organization’s data integrity could be breached.

Direct attacks on data integrity can occur during any of these processes. Without the proper security protocols in place, your organization can be left vulnerable to internal or external attacks. To ensure data integrity, ISACA recommends using a solution that allows security teams to maintain control over access rights/privileges and allows them to perform internal audits. Privileged access management is the clear solution to these requirements.

Privileged Access Management Helps Maintain Data Integrity

Privileged access management helps maintain data integrity by ensuring data can only be accessed and modified by appropriate users. Without this kind of robust solution in place, it can be challenging for organizations to have a clear picture of who has access to data and what they are doing with that data. The basic components of privileged access management include:

• Session Management: ensures that you have visibility over all the actions of users accessing important data. The session manager provides your security teams with unalterable audit trails which can not only be reviewed if a breach is suspected, but can simplify the process of meeting compliance regulations. A robust session management tool can beyond just creating an audit trail and actually prevent privileged users from attempting forbidden actions and/or create alerts or shut-down access in the event that they try to do so.
• Password Vault: keeps all passwords in a centralized location to prevent end users from having direct access to root passwords. This helps prevent intentional insider attacks as well as unintentional insider attacks that could occur from credentials getting stolen by an outsider.
• Access Manager: provides a single point of access for all users. Super administrators can quickly add or delete users as needed and modify access and permissions based on changes in job responsibilities. This is crucial in the practical ability of administrators to maintain the principal of least privilege i.e. that users are only given the minimum amount of privileges needed to perform their jobs—and these privileges are promptly revoked when no longer needed.

In a robust privileged access management solution, session, password, and access management come together to ensure your organization has complete control and visibility over data.

With these security controls in place, organizations can feel secure in having complete visibility over who is accessing and modifying data. Plus, privileged access management doesn’t just apply to data integrity, it can improve security operations across the board by defending against internal and external attacks that can occur through various information technology systems.

The WALLIX PAM Solution

The WALLIX Bastion privileged access management solution helps your organization defend against threats by providing:

• Complete visibility: through unalterable audit trails that control, monitor, record, and trace all privileged session activity.
• Guaranteed user adoption: our easy-to-use solution doesn’t interrupt day to day operations for your employees.
• Unobtrusive and rapid deployment: quickly deploy the solution without intrusive agents or slowing down your information technology infrastructure.
• Analytics: collect user data for a complete report of usage and behavioral analytics.

Ensure Data Integrity with the WALLIX Bastion

Without a robust privileged access management solution in place, your organization has no way of maintaining visibility and control over data. The decentralization of information systems presents new vulnerabilities to organizations that must be addressed. Privileged access management from WALLIX is the solution that can help you maintain data integrity and secure your enterprise from other threats.

Maintain data integrity and security your organization using the WALLIX solution.

Think the WALLIX solution is right for you? Contact us or sign up for a free trial.