This document describes the business problems which privileged access management system (PAMS)s are intended to address. It goes on to describe best practices for processes, policies and technology used to secure access to privileged accounts and other elevated privileges.

This document is intended for practitioners, to guide system design, technical architecture choices, product selection, program management, initial deployment and ongoing support of PAMS. As much as possible, this document has been made vendor- and product-agnostic.