Privileged Access Management: Securing High-Risk Accounts

Part of the Cybersecurity Skills Guide — This article is one deep-dive in our complete guide series.

By HADESS Team | February 28, 2026 | Updated: February 28, 2026 | 5 min read

Privileged accounts are the keys to the kingdom. Domain admin, root, database admin, cloud provider root — if an attacker gets one of these, they own the environment. PAM solutions control who can use privileged credentials, how they access them, and what they do with them.

Vault Solutions

A credential vault stores privileged passwords, SSH keys, API tokens, and certificates in an encrypted, access-controlled repository. No one memorizes or writes down the domain admin password. Instead, they check it out from the vault, use it, and the vault rotates it afterward.

CyberArk is the market leader for enterprise PAM. Its vault stores credentials with hardware-grade protection, manages automatic rotation, and provides session recording for audited access. The architecture includes a Digital Vault, Central Policy Manager, and Privileged Session Manager.

BeyondTrust and Delinea (formerly Thycotic) offer similar capabilities with different deployment models. BeyondTrust includes privilege elevation and delegation management for endpoints. Delinea’s Secret Server offers a lower entry point for organizations starting their PAM program.

HashiCorp Vault handles secrets management for applications and infrastructure (covered in depth separately) but can also serve PAM use cases with its SSH secrets engine and dynamic credential generation.

Key vault requirements:

• Encrypt credentials at rest and in transit
• Enforce multi-person approval for access to high-sensitivity credentials
• Integrate with your identity provider for authentication
• Provide API access for automated workflows
• Support break-glass procedures for emergency access

Session Recording

Watching what privileged users do is as important as controlling who they are. Session recording captures screen activity, keystrokes, and commands executed during privileged sessions.

Configure recording for all interactive privileged sessions: RDP to domain controllers, SSH to production servers, database admin console access. Store recordings with tamper-evident integrity checks and retention policies aligned with your compliance requirements.

Review recordings based on risk signals rather than watching every session. Flag sessions where unusual commands were executed, where the session duration was abnormally long, or where file transfers occurred. Automated analysis tools can scan recordings for patterns like passwd, net user, or bulk data access queries.

Just-In-Time Access

Standing privileged access — accounts that always have admin rights — is the root cause of most privilege abuse. Just-In-Time (JIT) access grants privileges only when needed and revokes them automatically after a defined period.

JIT workflow: 1. User requests access to a specific system with a business justification 2. Request is approved (automatically for pre-approved scenarios, manually for high-risk access) 3. Temporary credentials or group membership is granted for a defined window (1 hour, 4 hours, 1 day) 4. Access is automatically revoked when the window expires 5. All activity during the window is logged and attributable

In cloud environments, JIT maps to temporary role assumption. AWS STS provides time-limited credentials. Azure PIM (Privileged Identity Management) manages JIT elevation for Azure AD roles. These eliminate the standing access problem for cloud infrastructure.

Credential Rotation

Passwords and keys that never change are passwords and keys that are eventually compromised. Automated rotation changes privileged credentials on a defined schedule or after every use.

Set rotation policies based on credential sensitivity:

• Service accounts: rotate every 30-90 days (balance security with application compatibility)
• Admin accounts: rotate after every checkout (single-use credentials)
• SSH keys: rotate every 90 days or migrate to certificate-based authentication
• API keys: rotate quarterly at minimum, immediately after any employee departure

Test rotation in a lab before enabling it in production. Automated rotation that breaks an application at 2 AM because the new password did not propagate to a dependent service is worse than no rotation at all. Map credential dependencies before automating.

Next Steps

• Evaluate your identity and access management knowledge with the skills assessment
• Browse IAM and security architecture topics in the skills library
• Check the salary calculator to see how PAM expertise affects compensation

Related Guides in This Series

• EDR: Endpoint Detection, Response, and Threat Hunting — HADESS | 2026
• Firewall Management: Rules, Zones, and Change Control — HADESS | 2026
• Hardware Security Modules: Key Management and Compliance — HADESS | 2026

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