CyberArk and ATOS launch PAM service

CyberArk and ATOS have announced a joint offering around PAM (Privileged Access Management). ATOS is offering customers a PAM managed security services based on the CyberArk Privileged Account Security Solution.

The goal is to stop attacks that target users who have high levels of privileges on the corporate network. These accounts have become heavily targeted by hackers as once compromised, they provide access to an organisations most sensitive data.

According to Adam Bosnian, executive vice president, global business development, CyberArk: “It is critical that organisations take a proactive, layered approach to protecting their most valuable assets – making privileged account security the first thing organizations should focus on when prioritizing their risk management strategies. Organisations taking advantage of this new service will benefit from Atos’ global reach and security expertise, as well as their understanding of privileged account-related risks to deliver crucial protection against evolving threats.”

An end-to-end security solution

Doing this deal with CyberArk makes sense for ATOS. They have been building out their end-to-end cyber security services and solutions for some time now. Moving into privileged access management makes a lot of sense. Far too many people inside organisations have more security access than they require. This happens because their access to data and systems is not reviewed when they are promoted or change role.

By using the CyberArk solution, ATOS will be able to show customers the risk from unmanaged or poorly managed access controls. This will come from an audit of who has access to sensitive data and intellectual property. Using a range of other tools and analytics, ATOS will then be able to track what users are accessing and when. This feeds into the PAM analytics solution which will show unexpected patterns of behaviour.

ATOS is also likely to integrate this with its wider security and threat analytics solutions. The wider analytics offering will increase the detection of attacks at an earlier stage.

Conclusion

Companies give away access to their systems far too easily. It is surprising that this new service mentions nothing about integration with Human Resource solutions. They are the ultimate gatekeepers in terms of users’ roles inside the organisation. They are not in a position to determine what data a user has access to. As they know when users have changed roles they should be a trigger for a check of their access rights. This would reduce the risk of people holding onto privileges they no longer require.

The majority of successful breaches of data networks rely on stolen privileged user credentials. ATOS will be hoping that its customers are willing to outsource a basic IT function in order to reduce the threat.