According to the results of Cyber-Ark Software’s global IT security survey on Privileged Account Security & Compliance, 86% of large enterprise organizations either do not know or have grossly underestimated the magnitude of their privileged account security problem, while more than half of them share privileged passwords internally.
“It has become clear that privileged accounts are a priority target for cyber-attackers – every new report highlights this and every new attack reveals the privileged pathway the attackers are travelling. Despite this, organizations are having a difficult time understanding the magnitude of this security problem in their environments because privileged accounts exist everywhere,” said John Worrall, CMO of Cyber-Ark, in a statement. “To minimize the risk associated with these accounts, organizations need to identify where these accounts exist, control access to them, and monitor exactly what is being done with them. Implementing a privileged account security solution to automate these processes helps organizations enforce these controls, while providing a clear audit trail for accountability and security.”
Privileged accounts have emerged as the primary target for advanced enterprise attacks and have been exploited to perpetrate some of the most devastating cyber-attacks and data breaches in recent memory, including those occurring at Saudi Aramco, South Korea, Global Payments, the South Carolina Department of Revenue and the U.S. Department of Energy among others, said Cyber-Ark researchers, echoing a recent report by information security firm Mandiant that noted that APT intruders prefer to leverage privileged accounts where possible, such as domain administrators, service accounts with domain privileges, local administrator accounts, and privileged user accounts.
Privileged accounts consist of privileged and administrative accounts, default and hardcoded passwords, application backdoors, and more. These accounts act as a gateway to an organization’s most sensitive data, which is accessible across systems, applications and servers. Despite the repeated abuse of privileged accounts in cyber-attacks, organizations continue to have a difficult time identifying and managing these critical vulnerabilities.
Based on the examination of more than 1200 customer deployments, Cyber-Ark determined that the number of privileged accounts in an organization is typically three to four times the number of employees. When asked to estimate the number of privileged accounts in their organization, 86% of respondents from large enterprises (5000+ employees) said they either didn’t know how many accounts they had or that they had no more than one per employee. As Cyber-Ark points out, that means at least two out of every three privileged accounts in these organizations are either unknown or unmanaged.
Privileged accounts can be found in any device with a microprocessor, including PCs, databases, networked devices like copiers, operating systems and more, the firm said. When asked where privileged accounts could be found, 63% correctly stated “all of the above.” But that means that 37% of respondents do not understand where privileged accounts exist in their organization.
Meanwhile, 51% of all organizations surveyed stated that privileged and administrative account passwords were shared among “approved” users. “The problem is more wide spread among large enterprises, where 56% of respondents stated they shared privileged passwords, as opposed to 47% of SMBs (5000 employees or less),” Cyber-Ark noted.
According to Gartner’s “Ten Best Practices for Managing Privileged Accounts,” the passwords for ‘shared privileged accounts’ should never be shared: “Sharing super-user account passwords dramatically increases the risk that a password may become known outside the intended groups. Furthermore, poorly controlled use of shared accounts cannot provide the individual accountability that is a security best practice and demanded by regulatory compliance.”
And then there are issues with passwords. Despite 82% of respondents stating they have processes in place for changing privileged passwords, 49% of all businesses take 90 days or longer to change their privileged passwords, while 74% take 60 days or longer. Large enterprises are the slowest grouping to change privileged passwords, with 53% taking 90 days or longer.
“While some industry standards suggest that privileged account passwords be changed at a frequent interval of no longer than 90 days, the recent spate of attacks using privileged accounts demonstrates this time period is no longer sufficient and leaves organizations vulnerable,” Cyber-Ark said. “Privileged account password changes should be automated and restricted to one-time use to ensure tighter security standards.”