Nowadays, cyber-attacks have become increasingly common and hit more and more companies, of all verticals and sizes. According to the SonicWall 2022 Cyber Threat report, the number of cyberattacks involving data encryption increased by 167% in 2021, reaching 10.4 million attacks. And they weren’t the only ones: Intrusion attempts increased by 11% and IoT malware was up 6% in 2021 compared to 2020.

And the cost of these attacks also follows this trend: according to IBM in its Cost of a Data Breach 2021 report, the average cost of a data breach was USD 4.24 million, up almost 10% compared to 2020. It’s worth remembering that privileged users are a major attack vector used by cybercriminals: according to Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report 2022, more than 40% of data breaches involved exploiting stolen high-privilege credentials.

And it’s no wonder that privileged credentials are also called keys to the kingdom. After all, these credentials allow access to critical information and to modify settings in the environment. If compromised, they can cause significant damage to the organization, including affecting business continuity. For this, it is important for security leaders to implement processes, train people, and acquire tools to properly manage privileged access. This is called Privileged Access Management, or PAM. According to Gartner, by 2022, 70% of organizations will implement PAM practices for all their use cases, a 40% increase from 2020.

Implementing PAM allows organizations to effectively monitor their environment, as well as pinpoint who had access to which assets connected to the infrastructure. In this way, it is possible to protect the organization against threats – both internal and external – in addition to preventing malicious actors from gaining access to sensitive data through high-privilege accounts and enabling compliance with the latest cybersecurity regulations, including security protection laws. data such as LGPD, GDPR and CCPA. However, according to Gartner, mitigating risks associated with privileged access is virtually impossible without PAM solutions. These risks include, for example, the lack of visibility of assets, as well as the traceability of actions performed through privileged credentials. It is worth remembering that Gartner elected PAM as the number 1 project in security for two years in a row.

To ensure maximum protection, we at senhasegura have developed an approach that covers the entire life cycle of privileged access, including the actions carried out before, during, and after the realization of privileged access. These actions range from discovering privileged credentials in the environment and provisioning them to verifying actions performed in the environment. In this article, however, we will focus on the “during” step, and explain in more depth the actions performed during privileged access.

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These actions are primarily related to what the user performs while performing privileged access, after provisioning and granting access to the user. A PAM solution in this case allows administrators to define which users (or group of users) will be allowed to access a credential to perform access to a device, system or application. During this access, it must be possible to record all activities carried out through privileged credentials. This means that administrators must be able to see what actions are being performed on the systems and devices managed by the PAM solution, in addition to video recording and logging all remote sessions performed on these devices. This ensures that all actions taken can be tracked and audited later, thus allowing you to detect the causes of a cyber incident, or meet audit requirements.

In this case, the PAM solution must also be able to detect, respond and send alerts about any suspicious activity carried out through privileged credentials, based on their usage profiles. In this way it is possible for the security team to discover and prevent an ongoing cyber attack.

In addition to privileged credentials, a PAM solution also allows for the management and protection of SSH keys, digital certificates and secrets in DevOps environments, enabling the implementation of DevSecOps. According to Gartner, by 2021, DevSecOps practices (i.e., the adoption of Security practices in Development and Operations processes) will be adopted by 60% of agile development teams, against 20% in 2019.

We have seen that the implementation of proper Privileged Access Management is impossible without specialized PAM tools. The tool chosen by the organization must consider all aspects of the privileged access lifecycle: from provisioning access to verifying all actions performed in the environment. In this way, it is possible for Information Security teams to adequately protect the “keys to the kingdom” against the actions of malicious agents, including internal threats. In times of data protection legislation such as GDPR, LGPD and CCPA, ensuring compliance with these regulations is more than reducing cyber risks, it is ensuring business continuity.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) is primarily associated with business transparency and the use of accounting and financial controls to protect investors from fraudulent financial reporting. However, it is always important to remember the ever-increasing pivotal role cybersecurity plays in SOX as digitization continues to accelerate and cybersecurity threats, financial reporting, and auditors intersect.

After all, financial data is sensitive and the financial industry has seen increasing attacks from threat actors in 2020, increasing by 238% in 2020 alone.

Additionally, the 2021 Gartner Hot Spots report names cyber vulnerabilities as a primary area of risk that auditors need to address, stating that the threat has been further amplified by “large-scale remote work.”

With regulators taking these new and emerging threats to investors into consideration, companies and auditors need to be aware of evolving requirements to keep up with SOX compliance and cybersecurity practices to protect themselves from risks like these.

Even companies that do not operate in the US or engage with US clients should take note as SOX is becoming increasingly global, with the UK Financial Reporting Council (FRC) working on a UK equivalent.

Read on to find out what you need to do to achieve Sarbanes-Oxley compliance using cybersecurity controls.

What is SOX Compliance?

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was introduced in the US in 2002. Congressmen Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley merged compliance law to improve corporate governance and accountability. This was done as a response to some of the big financial scandals that took place in previous years.

The details of SOX compliance are complex. SOX compliance refers to annual audits that take place at publicly traded companies, within which they are required by law to show evidence of accurate and secure financial reporting.

These companies are required to comply with SOX both financially and IT. IT departments were affected by SOX as the Act changed the way corporate electronic records were stored and handled.

SOX’s internal security controls require data security practices and processes and complete visibility into interactions with financial records over time. Failure to comply with SOX is a serious matter, often resulting in large fines or potentially imprisonment for those responsible for the organization.

Who must comply with SOX compliance?

All publicly traded companies in the US must comply with the SOX, as well as any wholly-owned subsidiaries and foreign companies that are publicly traded and do business with the US.

Any accounting firms that are auditing firms bound by SOX compliance are also, by proxy, required to comply. Other companies, including private and non-profits, are generally not required to comply with SOX, although adhering to it is good corporate governance practice.

There are reasons other than good business sense to comply with SOX even if your company is not listed on a stock exchange. SOX has some articles that state that if any company knowingly destroys or falsified financial data, it can be punished according to the law.

Companies planning to go public, perhaps through an IPO (Initial Public Offering), should prepare to commit to SOX.

What are the benefits of SOX compliance?

SOX provides the framework companies need to follow to better manage their financial records, which in turn improves many other aspects of the company.

Companies that comply with SOX report that their finances are more predictable, which makes shareholders happy. Companies also report that they have easier access to capital markets due to improved financial reporting.

By implementing SOX, companies are safer from cyberattacks and the costly consequences of a data breach. Data breaches are difficult to manage and remediate, and companies may never recover from the damage to their brands.

SOX compliance builds a cohesive internal team and improves communication between teams involved in audits. The benefits of a company-wide program like SOX can have other tangible effects on the company – such as better communication and cross-functional cooperation.

In short, the benefits of SOX compliance are:

• A reinforced control environment
• Improved documentation
• Greater involvement of the Audit Committee
• Convergence opportunities
• Standardized processes
• Reduced complexity
• Minimization of human error

What is the role of cyber security in SOX?

Companies need to remember that the scope of SOX only includes financial controls and therefore testing is limited to financial applications, servers, operating systems and databases within the scope of production.

There are many other servers and devices not reviewed for SOX compliance that could be compromised and in turn affect financial reporting. Thus, it is critical to take a holistic approach to security and internal audit that includes prevention, detection, and corrective controls to address cybersecurity risks.

Initially, internal auditors should incorporate cyber risks into their annual audit risk assessments and should interview key cybersecurity officials during the process. Now that boards are asking more questions about cyber risk and mitigation efforts, there is value in scheduling these meetings even more frequently.

Once cyber risks are identified and controls are designed, it is important to base your organization’s cyber and SOX controls with a cybersecurity framework such as those provided in the NIST Cybersecurity Framework to test and monitor the effectiveness of mitigation efforts.

The IT controls that companies review in SOX can be used across other applications and IT environments to strengthen their cybersecurity posture, including:

• Using least privilege for access control.
• Change network, application, firewall, database, and operating system administrator passwords regularly.
• Password controls.
• Restrict service accounts to only those with necessary privileges.
• Segregation of Duties in Change Management and Access Modification.
• App access review and certification.
• Change management procedures.
• Backup Procedures.

For direct evidence of SOX, companies must complete a SOX cybersecurity memorandum annually and consider additional controls. A cybersecurity memo should be completed by both internal and external IT auditors to assess how prepared the company is for a cyberattack.

These discussions often lead to how a company’s IT security and internal audit groups can benefit from each other. Based on the cyber discussions, obvious design gaps should be addressed, including issues such as limited cyber resources, lack of cyber risk assessment, lack of cyber maturity framework, poor cyber policies and procedures, inadequate cyber training, and understanding of the current state of the world. cyber program.

Disaster recovery is also starting to appear as a key SOX control, despite being historically seen as a corrective control and later outside the scope of SOX. The addition of this control includes additional focus on whether companies can recover their in-scope financial applications in the event of a cyberattack.

How to conduct a cybersecurity controls audit on SOX?

Auditing a company’s internal security controls is often the largest, most complex, and time-consuming part of a SOX compliance audit. This is because internal controls include all of the company’s IT assets such as workstations, hardware, software, and all other electronic devices that can access financial data.

SOX IT audits are focused on the following key areas:

Risk assessment and materiality analysis

Your organization needs to do a rigorous risk assessment that takes into account cybersecurity risks that fall under SOX. This approach will require cybersecurity expertise on audit teams and should also include executive and board-level information to help determine your organization’s definition of “material” cybersecurity risk.

To ensure you are covering a large number of bases, cybersecurity best practices recommend that you perform cybersecurity risk management using common frameworks like NIST and COSO to help you through the process.

When carrying out risk assessments, auditors should always examine how comprehensive and well-documented they are, as risk assessments are one of the key spheres that regulators and supervisory bodies will examine.

Fraud risk assessment

Make sure your organization has performed a thorough risk assessment for potential fraud activity to help with early detection and fraud prevention. The internal controls you are implementing should help prevent fraud and mitigate material impacts if they occur.

Implementing cybersecurity controls

After performing a risk assessment in which you have identified the cybersecurity risks, policies, and control solutions needed to comply with SOX, your company must implement these controls following industry standards.

Again, cybersecurity best practices recommend using a trusted framework such as the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (NIST CSF) as a foundation for designing Cyber SOX controls when starting to build a control environment.

Part of the implementation process will be training control owners on the purposes and reasons for controls and how they should communicate if a control fails or requires adjustment due to changes in the environment.

Monitoring and testing controls

Organizations should monitor and test the security controls they have implemented, performing periodic self-assessments, attestations, and other self-certifications. Audit teams can be a valuable resource in assessing the effectiveness of management programs and even provide practical, actionable areas to improve resilience if trained with this in mind.

It is important that you are regularly testing controls and continually monitoring the security of your own infrastructure and that of your vendors to prevent and prevent data breaches, data leaks and cyber threats. Having an understanding of log management is important in this process.

Reports

It is important that staff and auditors are familiar with the SOX disclosure requirements, knowing the correct forms of communication and the steps needed to make timely and appropriate disclosure in the event of something like a data breach.

Defining communication guidelines and who needs to be informed is a key part of incident response preparation.

What are the penalties for non-compliance with the SOX?

Being deemed non-SOX compliant can include penalties such as:

• Fines.
• Removal of public stock exchanges.
• Invalidation of civil liability insurance policies for directors and executives (D&O).

There are a number of sections that outline the penalties for being found to be non-compliant with SOX, such as:

• Section 906, where filing and certifying a misleading or fraudulent financial report can incur fines of up to $5 million and result in a criminal penalty of 20 years in prison.
• Section 802, where altering, falsifying, destroying or concealing financial records, documents or tangible objects to obstruct, impede or influence legal investigations can incur penalties of up to 20 years in prison. It also carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison for accountants, auditors or others who deliberately violate the requirements of maintaining all audit or review papers for a period of 5 years.
• Section 806, where whistleblower complaints are protected from retaliation, further authorizes the US Department of Justice to criminally prosecute employers who retaliate against the respective individuals.

For IT departments and executives, SOX compliance is an important ongoing concern. However, SOX compliance is more than just passing an audit. This aspect involves defining data governance processes and procedures and a series of tangible benefits for your business.

According to a 2019 survey:

• 57% of organizations benefit from improved internal controls over the financial reporting framework.

• 51% have an improved understanding of control design and the operational effectiveness of the control.
• 47% saw continuous improvement of business processes.

What are the key SOX compliance challenges for cybersecurity?

One of the biggest challenges is privileged users, who are often important and trusted company employees – the kind that don’t like to be questioned for potential fraudulent activity. To lessen the likelihood of this kind of necessary and uncomfortable questioning, IT departments often manage privileges by restricting and segregating them. Unfortunately, by restricting admin permissions, organizations are indirectly limiting productivity.

Monitoring privileged user database access is difficult, as the monitored users themselves often have the credentials needed to “beat the system” by deleting fraudulent logs they do not want to be seen. Again, however, restricting these credentials undermines efficiency, as administrators often use the database’s logging capabilities as a debug mechanism.

Another difficulty involves the need to audit access failures, whether they are invalid login attempts or unsuccessful attempts to retrieve privileged files. Either way, these types of activities are possible warning signs of fraudulent activity and must be tracked to satisfy SOX’s audit controls.

Additional challenges include monitoring schema modifications to ensure the veracity of the data structures being audited and monitoring privilege changes to maintain visibility into the user directory. It is also important to audit access to sensitive data tables and systems, such as SQL server events.

Other obstacles preventing SOX compliance for IT systems include insufficient database logs, ineffective data reporting, and poor event alerts.

The need to replay events by identifying key happenings in audit trails, archiving each event for future audits, ensuring the security of audit logs, producing scheduled reports for auditors, and being constantly aware of potential warnings of fraudulent activity (such as repeated login attempts failure) makes life more difficult for IT administrators.

Privileged Access Management as a solution to SOX Compliance

Muitos, senão todos os controles gerais de TI da SOX estão associados ao gerenciamento de acesso. Por exemplo, se a configuração de um aplicativo fizer parte de um controle de TI, saber quem fez a configuração (até o ponto de auditoria) é essencial para manter fortes controles.

A pessoa que configura os aplicativos e sistemas é um usuário privilegiado e possui acesso administrativo ao sistema. A partir dessa posição privilegiada, ela pode adicionar, editar ou excluir contas ou alterar configurações que afetam as transações financeiras.

Por exemplo, pode haver controle sobre quem pode lançar ativos no balanço patrimonial. Se esse controle puder ser manipulado sem o conhecimento de ninguém, os dados financeiros poderão ser corrompidos, e isso pode ser não intencional ou deliberado. Esta é uma receita para fraudes graves.

Many if not all of SOX’s general IT controls are associated with access management. For example, if the configuration of an application is part of an IT control, knowing who did the configuration (up to the point of auditing) is critical to maintaining strong controls.

The person who configures the applications and systems is a privileged user and has administrative access to the system. From this privileged position, the employee can add, edit or delete accounts or change settings that affect financial transactions.

For example, there may be control over who can post assets on the balance sheet. If this control can be manipulated without anyone’s knowledge, financial data could be corrupted, and this could be unintentional or deliberate. This is a recipe for serious fraud.

Companies that do not manage access well face some problems. In addition to an increased risk of cybersecurity breaches, there is also the likelihood that the SOX auditor will deem IT controls inappropriate.

A PAM (Privileged Access Management) solution provides a secure and simplified way to authorize and monitor all privileged users for sensitive systems, including systems involved in financial reporting.

PAM grants and revokes privileges to users for systems on which they are authorized. In addition, the solution centrally and quickly manages access to the type of heterogeneous systems that handle financial transactions and reports (e.g. General Ledger, ERP, Billing, banking APIs and others.)

The PAM solution creates an unalterable audit trail for any privileged operation. This feature facilitates the SOX evidence and audit process.

Benefits of the senhasegura solution for SOX compliance

We offer a PAM solution to achieve SOX compliance in the IT department and beyond.

The senhasegura solution combines robust PAM features with unique ease of installation and use. An agentless architecture simplifies deployment and ongoing changes, while other PAM solutions require the installation of a dedicated software agent on each system where privileged access is being managed.

Ease of use and installation provide major benefits for SOX compliance. The Act has the potential to constrain agility if controls are too tight and IT needs to be able to modify systems to keep up with business changes.

The senhasegura solution reinforces the internal controls and reporting requirements necessary for SOX compliance, going far beyond simply meeting the rules to implement an “inside-out” security approach to become part of your organization’s DNA.

For more information on how the senhasegura solution can help your company achieve SOX compliance, request a demo!

In 2021, there was a 50% increase in the number of attacks on corporate networks compared to the previous year. This is pointed out by Check Point Research (CPR), Check Point’s Threat Intelligence division. And many of these attacks involve exploiting this type of credential. According to the Verizon Data Breach Investigation 2021 report, 61% of surveyed data leaks involved privileged credentials. And the cost of this type of attack is also higher. According to IBM in the Cost of Data Breach Report 2021, while the average cost of a data leak is usually $ 4.24 million, when the data leak involves privileged credentials, this value can reach $ 4.37 million.

And, as it seems, with the increasing evolution of technology, cyber threats are expected to intensify further in 2022. This is because new technological tools widely adopted by organizations increase the attack surface, giving room for malicious agents to act.

One of the ways to minimize these risks is by investing in Privileged Access Management (PAM), which ensures the application of the least privilege, providing each user with only the necessary permissions to perform their activities.

In addition, this solution involves numerous other features and benefits, which we will explore in this article. To facilitate your reading, we divided our text into topics. They are:

• Privileged Access Management (PAM): What Is It?
• What Are the Different Types of Privileged Accounts?
• Why Is It Important?
• How Does Privileged Access Management (PAM) Work?
• What Are the Main Features of a PAM Solution?
• Key Benefits of PAM
• What Are PAM Tools?
• What Is the Difference Between IAM and PAM?
• Privileged Access Management (PAM) FAQ
• Attack on Microsoft: How Could a PAM Solution Have Reduced this Cyber Risk?
• The Privileged Access Lifecycle Approach
• DevSecOps and PAM
• About senhasegura
• Conclusion

Enjoy the read!

• Privileged Access Management (PAM): What Is It?

Privileged Access Management (PAM) is a set of strategies necessary for organizations of all industries and sizes to protect privileged credentials, which represent cyber risks and can generate millionaire losses for a company.

In practice, privileged credentials enable administrators to make changes to applications, devices, and systems, being related to machines and human users. Its use has increased significantly in recent times due to the adoption of new technologies such as 5G internet, cloud computing, and the internet of things (IoT).

The big issue is that this also increases the risks, since many users can abuse their permissions, on purpose or not. Moreover, firing an employee in this context also requires caution: one must remove their privileges with the necessary anticipation to avoid malicious actions and eventual damages.

Not to mention external threats represented by hackers, who use privileged credentials to access the IT infrastructure, being able to steal or destroy data and files.

To reduce these threats, it is strongly recommended to invest in Privileged Access Management (PAM), using mechanisms developed to protect these administrative credentials.

In this sense, the tools specialized in PAM allow for maximizing security in the infrastructure, increasing visibility, and decreasing operational complexity. Gartner finds it virtually impossible to manage risk in privileged access without specialized PAM tools.

With PAM, it is possible to adopt the principle of least privilege, which guarantees each user and machine have only the necessary permissions to perform their functions. In this way, the damage caused by a cyberattack is limited, as the attack surface is reduced, that is, the invaders do not have access to the entire environment.

In addition, PAM tools make it possible to centrally manage access, facilitating the work of users, who do not need to remember several passwords or store them in insecure places, such as laptops or spreadsheets. PAM also allows information security officers to track operations performed by privileged users in real-time, protect cloud or hybrid environments, and maintain compliance with security standards.

Finally, with Privileged Access Management (PAM), it is also possible to detect unauthorized actions that endanger information security and business continuity.

• What Are the Different Types of Privileged Accounts?

Privileged accounts and access have a strategic role within a business, after all, these resources are the ones that allow the management of a company’s IT infrastructure, in addition to enabling its employees to access the data necessary to make critical decisions.

Among the actions made possible by a privileged account, we can highlight:

• Making changes to the system and software configuration;
• Performing administrative tasks;
• Creating and modifying user accounts;
• Installing software;
• Backing up data;
• Updating security and patches;
• Enabling interactive logins; and
• Accessing privileged data.

Despite their relevance, these accounts pose a major cyber risk to organizations, as they are targeted by malicious attackers who wish to move through the network, accessing systems and data, without being detected or tracked.

This is because a privileged account does not necessarily need to be directed to human users and often provides high privileges to execute specific permissions, which are not always associated with the positions and roles of employees.

On the contrary, in most companies, many people share the same accounts, including the IT team, information security professionals, and outsourced employees, which generates cyber threats aggravated by the fact that people tend to reuse weak and easy-to-remember passwords.

In this sense, if you want to avoid cyber threats in your organization, we strongly recommend you protect your privileged accounts. Among these accounts, we can highlight:

• Local Administrator Accounts

These accounts are not personal and provide local access on devices. Used by the IT team to configure workstations or perform maintenance, they usually use the same password on different platforms, in a shared way, becoming the target of malicious agents.

In practice, local administrator accounts enable hackers to discover and measure the security levels of an organization and are primarily responsible for excessive employee-oriented privileges.

They can also be used to control resources, create local users, and assign access control permissions and user rights.

You may not be aware of all the privileged accounts your company has.

• Privileged User Accounts

Here, we refer to normal accounts, but with access to sensitive privileged data, which explains the threat they pose to malicious actors.

These are accounts that require close monitoring, as they can be shared between administrators, providing authority through the network.

Therefore, it is recommended to track and secure all privileged user accounts, using Privileged Access Management (PAM) to determine who exactly has access to these accounts, how often they are requested, and what type of access has been made.

• Emergency Accounts

Emergency accounts are enabled only when a critical event occurs, which requires the restoration of systems and services or responses to cyber incidents.

These accounts are used when the normal service is unavailable and provide access to non-privileged users.

This process should require proper monitoring for audits but usually takes place manually, without proper maintenance and records.

• Domain Administrator Accounts

Domain administrator accounts allow one to accomplish almost everything within an IT structure. That is, they should receive effective monitoring, as they pose a great risk in case of compromise, since they have access to all servers and workstations of a Windows domain.

Through these accounts, domain administrators fully control the ability to modify the association of all administrative accounts.

For this reason, domain administrator accounts should be restricted to the maximum extent, and their users should be added with caution. Moreover, it is of paramount importance to audit all actions performed with this type of privilege.

• Service Accounts

The functionality of these local or privileged domain accounts is to enable applications and services to interact with operating systems, and an application may require domain access.

In the case of local service accounts, they hardly have their passwords modified, as this process can interfere with dependent systems. In addition, these passwords may be embedded, which makes it easier for hackers to work.

• Application Accounts

The role of these accounts is to enable applications to access resources such as databases, networks, and automated tasks and provide access to other applications. In general, they provide access to a lot of the organization’s data and are shared.

The problem is that, in order for everyone to have access to them, they are usually stored in unencrypted text files, which can also be accessed by malicious agents.

Through remote access, these cybercriminals can modify system binaries or change default accounts to privileged ones and use them to move around the network.

• Domain Service Accounts

Generally used for backup, analytics, software deployment, and security patch update solutions, domain service accounts allow you to bring together applications and systems that communicate and provide access to resources needed to call APIs, access databases, and issue reports.

Changing the passwords for these accounts is a complex process, so many organizations do not modify them or have specific procedures to deal with them.

• Why Is It Important?

When we talk about the cybersecurity chain in an organization, people represent a great vulnerability. This is because employees are a potential insider threat, as they can abuse privileges, bringing risks, and there are also external threats posed by hackers, who invade privileged accounts to take advantage.

For this reason, it is important to rely on Privileged Access Management, so that people have limited access to what is necessary to perform their work and so that information security teams can detect malicious actions related to the use of privileges and combat them.

This need has intensified in the current context in which business is based on digital solutions such as DevOps, cloud computing, industrial process automation, and the internet of things, increasing the number of machines and applications that require privileged access.

These technologies are more difficult to monitor and manage than humans, since commercial applications may need access to various parts of the network, making room for intrusions.

For this reason, it is essential to invest in specific Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions, which consider the privileges on-site, in the cloud, and hybrid environments and allows identifying atypical actions.

Endpoints and workstations are also targeted by hackers, as they contain privileges that can be exploited through the built-in administrator accounts. With this, they can perform a series of actions, such as stealing additional credentials, elevating privileges, and moving laterally across the network.

In this sense, Privileged Access Management (PAM) must be able to reduce risks by removing local administrator rights in workstations.

Another importance of PAM is related to compliance with important cybersecurity standards such as SOx, HIPAA, ISO 27001, NIST, FISMA, and the protection of companies against fines related to non-compliance with data protection laws, such as LGPD, GDPR, CCPA, Texas Privacy Act.

That is, organizations that invest in Privileged Access Management (PAM) as a cybersecurity strategy guarantee several advantages. They can reduce attack surfaces and cybersecurity risks while reducing operational costs and complexity, increasing visibility, and enabling compliance.

• How Does Privileged Access Management (PAM) Work?

Privileged Access Management (PAM) makes it possible to reduce insider and external cyber threats in an organization in many ways. One of them is protecting credentials with sensitive data in a location with managed access.

In this way, it is possible to control access to information such as those related to intellectual property, finances, business progress, trade secrets, and the personal data of customers.

Moreover, regardless of whether they are working in person or at home, employees of an organization have access only to the resources necessary to perform their tasks.

Another role of Privileged Access Management (PAM) is to limit access to external content on websites and applications that can make organizations more vulnerable to cyber threats.

• What Are the Main Features of a PAM Solution?

When we talk about privileged access, we refer to a type of special access, with permissions that go beyond an ordinary user. This feature enables companies to manage their business efficiently, protect their IT infrastructure and applications, and protect sensitive data.

As well as human users, non-human users, such as applications and machine identities, can have privileged access, creating vulnerabilities for cybersecurity, which can be mitigated with investment in Privileged Access Management (PAM).

The main function of this resource is to control and protect personal and high privilege credentials, as it ensures secure storage, access traceability, and segregation.

For this, Privileged Access Management (PAM) allows one to configure access groups and define who can use physical and remote access, respecting workflows of approval and validation of the explanation used by the requester.

In practice, the greater the number of privileges of a user, account, or process, the greater the internal and external risks represented by possible errors, abuses, and invasion. Therefore, Privileged Access Management (PAM) is essential not only to avoid risks but to mitigate their consequences if they become real.

• Key Benefits of PAM

Privileged Access Management (PAM) promotes security against cyber threats from internal or external sources. The following advantages stand out:

• Malware Protection

Many types of malware require high privileges to propagate. Thus, by reducing the excess of privileges through Privileged Access Management (PAM), one can prevent its installation or reduce its spread.

• Improved Operational Efficiency

Restricting permissions to the minimum range of processes to operate helps to avoid incompatibility between systems or applications. Consequently, downtime is avoided.

• Compliance

By providing more security, Privileged Access Management (PAM) enables an organization to benefit from audits and bring it into compliance with important regulations, such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, FDDC, Government Connect, FISMA, and SOX, and respect the legislation, such as GDPR, LGPD, and CCPA.

• What Are PAM Tools?

Privileged Access Management (PAM) tools are divided into three categories: Privileged Account and Session Management (PASM), Privileged Elevation and Delegation Management (PEDM), and Secrets Management. Learn more about each of them:

• PASM

With PASM solutions, credentials are created securely and distributed only through PAM, similar to what happens with a password manager. Thus, every time users need access, they receive only one temporary account with privileges. This account is used only once, while all activities are monitored and recorded. Key features of PASM solutions include:

• Real-time Monitoring: by monitoring privileged sessions in real-time, one can interrupt unauthorized sessions as well as suspicious activities;
• Password Manager: PASM offers a password manager with encryption to store private keys, passwords, and privileged account credentials;
• Remote Session: to provide better visibility of the actions of each privileged user, operations are carried out through remote sessions;
• Password Rotation: passwords must be changed after a certain period, on a certain day and time, or after their use by users;
• Audit Resources: PASM solutions provide detailed information on privileged accounts through audit reports and resources;
• Access Control for Shared Accounts: access to shared accounts must be possible from the use of the multifactor authentication or additional approvals;
• Session Recording: Another functionality of PASM solutions is to allow the recording, storing, and organization of privileged sessions so that they can be reproduced or audited.

• PEDM

Unlike PASM solutions, which provide temporary privileges, PEDM solutions grant privileges according to the role of a user, defining who can have access and what type of access is granted.

In practice, this tool allows the application of the principle of least privilege, as it assigns specific privileges to each user according to the actions they must perform.

It also allows one to protect critical systems using local system application, process management, and session control.

• Secrets Management

Authentication credentials, such as passwords, SSH keys, API keys, and OAuth tokens, are considered secrets and their management must be adequate.

Although it is a broader scope, secrets also have the function of providing cybersecurity and avoiding unauthorized access to data and systems.

Efficient secret management prevents the invasion of network elements, enables the management of services in cloud environments, protects critical systems, and brings organizations into compliance with standards and legislation aimed at cybersecurity and data protection.

• What Is the Difference Between IAM and PAM?

Identity and Access Management (IAM) and PAM are tools that have the function of controlling an organization’s data in common and complement each other with their different capabilities.

Through IAM, it is possible to manage users and legitimize access to resources easily, but it presents vulnerabilities when it comes to privileged accounts.

Therefore, the use of PAM is recommended, which works more elaborately and comprehensively, informing which sessions were started, what was performed, and who has access to the data.

That is, Privileged Access Management (PAM) makes it possible to control everything related to this information, limiting access and ensuring its secure storage.

• Privileged Access Management (PAM) FAQ

Here are some frequently asked questions about Privileged Access Management (PAM) and their respective answers:

• Does a Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution prevent all types of cyberattacks?

No. With the constant evolution of technology, the tools used by hackers are increasingly sophisticated. Therefore, there is no tool capable of preventing all types of cyberattacks. Moreover, the implementation of PAM involves three aspects: tools, people, and processes. In any case, it is useless to invest in the state-of-the-art PAM solutions without investing in establishing adequate PAM processes and cybernetic awareness of employees and third parties.

However, a PAM solution helps reduce risks by providing more network security. In addition, this tool must be optimized frequently to monitor the evolution of cyberattacks.

• Can cyberattacks be carried out using privileged credentials?

Yes, cybercriminals are looking for ways to use privileged credentials to carry out cyberattacks. According to the Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report, 61% of cyberattacks involve the exploitation of privileged credentials. In this sense, Privileged Access Management (PAM) is essential to ensure visibility and prevent them from infiltrating organizations’ networks.

• Do all companies make use of Privileged Access Management (PAM)?

Unfortunately, not every organization invests in Privileged Access Management (PAM) and many suffer the consequences since invasions generate financial losses, loss of credibility, and even the closure of companies.

• Does PAM implementation require the use of shared accounts?

No. Quite the opposite. The use of shared accounts poses a risk to the security of an organization. Therefore, it is recommended not to adopt this practice.

• Does PAM make it possible to create non-privileged accesses?

Yes. PAM has modern corporate tools that allow it to go beyond the creation of privileged accesses and accounts, creating other types of access.

This is because Privileged Access Management (PAM) should facilitate connection to the system through security services, such as session and password management, and activity monitoring and logging.

• How does a PAM solution help reduce cyber risks?

Privileged Access Management (PAM) is extremely useful to avoid this type of problem, as it allows one to offer limited access to critical data, manage, and monitor privileged accounts and access.

This solution also allows addressing the life cycle of privileged access, before, during, and after access. In addition, it enables:

• Storing and recording remote sessions;
• Identifying changes in the user behavior patterns;
• Blocking sessions in case of suspicious behavior; and
• Providing secure remote access to employees and third parties through senhasegura Domum.

• The Privileged Access Lifecycle Approach

The approach to protecting privileged access involves its entire life cycle, including actions taken before, during, and after access, which is impossible without PAM tools.

However, we emphasize that ensuring cybersecurity does not only involve the implementation of sophisticated solutions. It is also necessary to optimize processes, in addition to raising awareness and training people.

Regarding the life cycle of privileged access, some steps must be followed, and the first one is to identify, register, and manage devices and their credentials, which can be a challenge in the face of complex environments with devices from different vendors and models.

This measure allows a better visualization of the attack surface that can be used by hackers to gain unauthorized access to an organization’s data.

The second step relates to the operations carried out during privileged access, which involves its management. In this sense, the professionals responsible for information security should monitor and record the actions taken during the accesses.

This makes it possible to evaluate cyber incidents that may occur, identify their causes, and solve them, ensuring compliance with audit requirements and meeting the deadlines for reporting data leaks stipulated in data protection laws.

Finally, the third step refers to the use of a tool that allows tracking previously-performed actions, which allows detecting abuses of privileges and violations and facilitates the audit process.

• DevSecOps and PAM

DevSecOps brings together security practices in the DevOps process, enabling launch engineers and security teams to work collaboratively through agile and secure software development methods.

PAM contributes to DevSecOps throughout the software development cycle in several ways.

Firstly, Privileged Access Management (PAM) allows scanning the secrets so that companies have visibility into where the data and credentials are stored and who performs each action at what time.

It also allows the administration of shared secrets and passwords embedded into codes, making it possible to track activities in the IT environment, ensuring the integrity of the software and compliance with security standards.

Another benefit is that users only have the necessary access to carry out their activities, which protects the IT environment in case an account is compromised.

• About senhasegura

senhasegura is developed by MT4 Tecnologia, a company that has more than 20 years of market and partners on five continents, covering 54 countries.

Our solutions began to be offered to meet the demand of one of the largest banks in the world, which needed to solve problems related to the management of privileged access to its critical structure.

With this, we received recognition from Gartner, one of the most important technology consultancies today, which addressed the solution in its Market Guide for Privileged Access Management report in 2016.

In addition, we, from senhasegura, were considered a Pam Challenger solution in the Gartner Magic Quadrant 2020 and 2021 reports and received the second-highest score in their 2021 Critical Capability (CC) report, which evaluated our technology as above the market average.

We also received the Customer’s Choice recognition twice in the Voice of the Customer 2021 report, being certified by Gartner as a Customer’s Choice in general and for medium-sized companies. Moreover, we obtained the highest score in Support Experience, with a score of 4.9 (out of 5).

We also received the Customer First badge, which recognizes vendors who request reviews from all customers in Gartner Peer Insights.

Among our advantages, the following stand out:

• Quick Deployment and Simple Maintenance

Our solution offers a full-stack plug-and-play platform with quick deployment and simple maintenance. Each component of the product is connected so that your company has a faster return on investment (ROI) and no additional infrastructure costs.

• Full Lifecycle Management of Privileged Accesses

Our goal is to eliminate the excess of privileges in the organizations that hire us, since privileged accounts and access are fundamental concepts for information security, and today there is a high volume of privileged credentials in the world.

With our PAM platform, one can gather all privileged identities and access them in one place and follow the complete privileged access management lifecycle, which ensures governance before, during, and after these accesses.

• No Extra Costs

Being offered in virtual machine format, our solution does not require hidden costs for additional licensing, such as database licenses and operating systems.

This is because senhasegura has features that enable new integrations every four hours, including legacy infrastructure.

In this way, the organization can more accurately plan its investment by deploying PAM in its IT environment.

• Customized Offer of High-Performance Hardware Appliances

Designed for PAM, senhasegura PAM Crypto Appliance offers advanced security requirements that enable you to meet physical security requirements.

senhasegura can be used in High Availability and Disaster Recovery architectures, in active-active, and active-passive configuration scenarios, regardless of the number of cluster members, resulting in better scalability.

• DevOps Secrets Management

With senhasegura, companies still ensure better threat visibility and more security in the implementation of DevSecOps, since its resources include scanning the DevOps pipeline and onboarding process through integration with CI/CD tools, increasing the visibility of secrets.

• Integrated Digital Certificate Management

Our platform is the only one that provides an Integrated Digital Certificate Management solution, which allows one to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and costs for implementation and training.

• Solutions for Cloud Infrastructure

The PAM platform includes solutions focused on cloud computing, reducing costs for organizations that do not have identity privilege management and cloud governance. Thus, it promotes Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM), which grants visibility to unnecessary privileges, without impacting the agility necessary for the work of developers.

We also work for:

• Avoiding the interruption of activities of companies, which may impair their performance;
• Performing automatic audits on the use of privileges;
• Performing automatic audits on privileged changes to detect privilege abuses;
• Providing advanced PAM solutions;
• Reducing cyber risks;
• Bringing organizations into compliance with audit criteria and standards such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, and Sarbanes-Oxley.

Now, learn about our different modules and their main capabilities:

• Endpoint PAM

Our Endpoint PAM solution makes it possible to protect enterprise networks connected to devices such as laptops, tablets, and mobile phones from the action of malicious actors, allowing one to perform functions that require privileges and start applications with automatic insertion of credentials.

For this, applications that use this type of privilege are listed and have their use limited to authorized users. Moreover, one can use a token for authentication on the device.

Another capability is the configuration of blacklists, which allows one to include unauthorized applications and map devices on workstations.

• Domum Remote Access

This product allows one to manage remote access for employees and third parties within an IT structure, protecting privileged credentials and strengthening information security against hacker intrusion into corporate networks.

Through senhasegura Domum, it is possible to rely on the remote session capabilities of senhasegura PAM, which provide access based on the Zero Trust model and ensure compliance with the access controls of the new legislation, among its benefits.

In addition, this solution exempts the need for a VPN or additional configuration for remote users.

• PAM SaaS

Compliance with cybersecurity management standards, regulations, and policies is also a benefit provided by PAM SaaS.

This tool aims to ensure information security in the context of cloud computing by managing the credentials used by administrators to access critical systems.

Suitable for companies of all industries and sizes, PAM SaaS allows one to simplify efforts and reduce operating costs for privileged access management.

• PAM Core

PAM Core aims to control the use of generic and privileged credentials, enabling secure storage, segregation of access, and full traceability of use.

In this way, it is possible to prevent cyberattacks, as well as leaks of critical data, in addition to recording and monitoring activities carried out during privileged sessions, avoiding the misuse of privileges, managing and resetting passwords, and issuing audit reports with ease.

• DSM

DevOps Secrets Management (DSM) adds security to the software development process by reducing risks related to improper access to sensitive data and lowering costs with Cloud IAM embedded in the solution.

This technology makes the use of DevOps (Development and Operations) methodologies more secure, without taking the focus away from the automation and agility needed for efficient delivery.

• Cloud IAM

Our Cloud IAM is used to control users’ access to cloud resources and services.

This solution makes it possible to isolate, record, and monitor all sessions, reconfigure default passwords, and assign individual responsibilities to privileged users.

It also incorporates task automation tools to provide new accounts with transparency and allows the integration of two layers of security for privileged accounts, among other capabilities.

• Digital Certificate Management

Many companies have their activities interrupted due to the expiration of digital certificates, since their management tends to be carried out through spreadsheets (manually), which can cause human failures.

The good news is that it is possible to manage the lifecycle of digital certificates through senhasegura Certificate Manager, which allows one to increase the level of security of applications with secure certificates, respecting the requirements and security policies of the organization.

• PAM Crypto Appliance

This solution, based on a hardware appliance, has the benefits of its availability, regardless of the infrastructure and the virtualization tool, as well as the high availability and disaster recovery technologies built into the product.

It protects against physical attack, storage of symmetric keys in hardware, encryption key protection in hardware, and destruction of data in case of appliance violation.

• PAM Crypto Virtual Appliance

PAM Crypto Virtual Appliance is aimed at customers who have a virtualization infrastructure and wish to opt for this type of architecture.

This tool was developed to run in virtual or cloud environments, ensuring the necessary security and performance requirements.

• PAM Load Balancer

PAM Load Balancer is our load balancing solution and has the benefits of eliminating costs with suppliers of balancing technologies, optimizing resources, which ensures greater bandwidth, less latency and fault tolerance, as well as less time for troubleshooting.

• Conclusion

In this article, you saw that:

• Privileged credentials allow changes to be made to applications, devices, and systems accessed by machines and human users;
• Their use has grown in recent times due to the adoption of new technologies, also increasing cyber risks;
• To reduce these threats, it is recommended to invest in Privileged Access Management (PAM);
• With PAM, it is possible to adopt the principle of least privilege, which guarantees each user and machine have only the necessary permissions to perform their functions.
• PAM also makes it possible to manage access in a centralized way;
• Privileged Access Management (PAM) also allows the detection of unauthorized actions;
• There are different types of privileged accounts, including local administrator accounts, privileged user accounts, emergency accounts, domain administrator accounts, service accounts, and application accounts;
• Endpoints and workstations are targeted by hackers, but can be protected through Privileged Access Management (PAM);
• PAM provides compliance with important cybersecurity standards and protects companies against fines for non-compliance with data protection laws, such as the LGPD;
• Privileged Access Management (PAM) limits access to external content on websites and applications, which can generate vulnerability to cybersecurity;
• Privileged access is a type of special access, with permissions that go beyond an ordinary user;
• The vulnerabilities created with this type of access can be mitigated with investment in Privileged Access Management (PAM);
• The benefits of PAM include: malware protection, operational performance, and compliance;
• PAM tools are divided into three categories: PASM, PEDM, and secrets;
• IAM and PAM are tools that control a company’s data and complement each other;
• The approach to protecting privileged access covers its entire life cycle;
• PAM contributes to DevSecOps throughout the software development cycle.

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Third-Party Access: A Growing Problem for Today’s Organizations

What Are the Main Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities in Industry 4.0

Today’s organizations rely on numerous business applications, web services, and custom software solutions to meet business communications and other transaction requirements.

Typically, multiple applications frequently require access to databases and other applications to query business-related information. This communication process is usually automated by embedding the application’s credentials in unencrypted text in configuration files and scripts. 

Administrators often find it difficult to identify, change, and manage these credentials. As a result, passwords remain unchanged, which may lead to unauthorized access to confidential systems. 

Thus, hardcoded passwords can facilitate the work of technicians, but can also be an easy entry point for malicious agents. Keep reading the text and learn more about what hardcoded passwords are and how to manage this feature with security.

What Are the Risks of Using Hardcoded Passwords?

Data breaches are one of the scariest threats to a company. Exposure of sensitive data, whether by accident or by criminals, can lead to loss of competitive advantage and even fines in case of exposure of personal information. 

According to IBM’s report, the global average cost of a data breach for an organization costs about $3.86 million in 2020, with an increase from about $1 million to $4.77 million if the breach is due to an employee’s compromised credentials.

In this scenario, companies are making large investments to reduce their attack surface and prevent possible data breaches. However, there is one threat that is usually underestimated among the many threats that need to be taken care of, although it possibly compromises the life of an entire company: hardcoded passwords.

Passwords encoded in a public codebase can be compared to closing the door of a house and forgetting the key in the lock: this is the most direct and obvious way to cause a data breach, in fact, hardcoded credentials do not need any specific skill to be exploited.

 Following other risks associated with hardcoded passwords, there is the fact that many applications or devices can share the same hardcoded password. As a result, guessing the password can allow cybercriminals to connect to and control all other devices or apps that use the same password. 

Unfortunately, guessing or learning the embedded combination may be easier than you think. Many developers share their code on GitHub and websites without realizing that by doing so, they can reveal passwords in plain text. 

Of course, cybercriminals are also aware of this, so it may just be a matter of time before they find the shared passwords accidentally. Not to mention that various malicious apps and tools can force the password of the app or device, so keeping it encoded in the source code is always a risk.

How Are Hardcoded Passwords Used and Where Are They Found?

Passwords are everywhere. Sometimes they are apparent, encoded in code or configuration files. Other times, they take the form of API keys, tokens, or cookies. 

Because they pose a security risk, there is no other way to say this: hardcoded passwords need to be deleted.

Hardcoded passwords are a practice used by developers when building a webpage or application. Using this practice, developers embed important information (passwords and other secret data) into the code language (rather than obtaining the passwords from external sources or generating them when needed).

As a result, encoded credentials contain passwords and other important secrets, and while they are not visible from the outside, they are almost very obvious and easy to find in the code language, which makes them a major security risk.

Within your business, you may have found hardcoded passwords in some ways, including:

 Setting up and establishing a new system.

• API and system integration.
• Creating encryption or decryption keys.
• To define privileged access.
• To simplify application-to-application or application-to-database communication.

Hardcoded passwords can be found at:

• Software applications, both on-premises and hosted in the cloud.
• BIOS and other firmware on computers, mobile devices, printers, and servers.
• DevOps applications.
• Networks that include routers, switches, and a multitude of other control systems.
• Mobile devices enabled for IoT and the internet.

Hardcoded passwords are not encrypted. This is exactly why they represent a critical security flaw.

What Are Examples of Security Incidents Involving Hardcoded Passwords?

Passwords remain by far the most widely used method for authenticating users in applications and systems, despite the long-standing efforts of technology industry leaders to find more secure alternatives.

The increasing number of attacks involving theft or compromised credentials over the past few years has focused more attention on ways to enhance the security of password-based authentication mechanisms.

Despite all the efforts of security professionals, cybersecurity incidents involving hardcoded credentials still occur. Below are the most well-known cases worldwide involving this problem.

Mirai Attack

Mirai malware, which gained prominence in late 2016 (although it may have been active years before), verifies Telnet service on Linux-based IoT boxes with Busybox (such as DVRs and WebIP cameras) and on stand-alone Linux servers. 

Then, through a brute force attack, it applies a table of 61 hardcoded default usernames and passwords to attempt a login. 

Mirai and its variants have been used to assemble huge botnets of IoT devices, up to about 400,000 connected devices, without the knowledge of most of its owners. 

Mirai-related botnets have carried out some of the most disruptive DDOS attacks ever seen, with victims such as French Telecom, Krebs on Security, Dyn, Deutsche Telekom, Russian banks, and the country of Liberia.

Uber Violation

While Mirai’s attacks were most notable for causing business downtime, Uber violation resulted in the exposure of information from 57 million customers, as well as about 600,000 drivers. 

As with Mira, the hardcoded credentials were faulty. An Uber employee has published plain text credentials in the source code that was posted to Github, which is a popular repository used by developers. 

An experienced malicious hacker simply found the credentials embedded in GitHub and used them to gain privileged access to Uber’s Amazon AWS instances.

What Are the Best Practices and Solutions for Hardcoded Password Management?

Many companies are aware of the problem posed by hardcoded credentials and know that passwords must be managed carefully. So here’s a list of best practices for managing hardcoded passwords in your IT environment.

Discover and Identify All Types of Passwords

Trying to find out if the hardcoded credentials are being used in the code is a good first step. The use of unencrypted text credentials also occurs in configuration files, infrastructure such as code, and containers. 

Discover and identify all types of passwords, keys, and other secrets throughout your IT environment and place them under centralized management. Continually discover and integrate new secrets as they are created.

In addition to being a possible security exposure, the use of hardcoded passwords can affect cyber resilience. Besides gaining visibility into their use, it is best to properly govern and protect the use of credentials to improve security and resilience.

Attention to DevOps Tools

Delete hardcoded and embedded passwords in DevOps tool settings, build scripts, code files, test builds, production builds, applications, and more. 

A best practice is to use a secret server or a credential vault to manage all kinds of secrets, such as passwords and SSH keys. This approach provides an API that gives access to policy-based secrets and eliminates the need to store credentials in unencrypted text in applications/configuration files/services.

Manage hardcoded credentials permanently, such as through API calls, and apply password security best practices. Deleting standard and hardcoded passwords effectively removes dangerous backdoors from your environment.

Create and Use Strong Passwords

Apply password security best practices, including length, complexity, exclusivity expiration, rotation, and more across all types of passwords. 

Credentials, if possible, should never be shared. If a credential is shared, it must be changed immediately. Credentials for more sensitive tools and systems should have more rigorous security parameters, such as single-use passwords and rotation after each use.

Monitor Privileged Sessions

Apply privileged session monitoring to record, audit, and monitor all privileged sessions (for accounts, users, scripts, automation tools, and others) to improve oversight and accountability.  

This may also involve capturing keys and screens (allowing live viewing and playback). Some business privilege session management solutions also allow IT teams to identify suspicious session activity in progress and to pause, block, or terminate the session until the activity can be properly assessed.

Manage Third-Party Credentials

 Extend credential management to third parties and ensure partners and suppliers are compliant with credential use and management best practices.

 Leverage threat analysis to continually analyze the use of credentials to detect anomalies and potential threats. The more integrated and centralized credential management is, the better you can report accounts, key applications, containers, and systems exposed to risk.

Adopt DevSecOps

With the speed and scale of DevOps, it is crucial to create security in the DevOps culture and lifecycle (from the beginning, design, construction, testing, launch, support, and maintenance). 

Adopting a DevSecOps culture means that everyone shares responsibility for security, helping to ensure accountability and alignment across teams. In practice, this should imply ensuring that best practices for secret management are in place and that the code does not contain embedded passwords.

Correct credential and secret management policies, supported by effective processes and tools, can make it much easier to manage, transmit and protect secrets and other inside information. 

What Are the Next Steps to Manage Hardcoded Passwords?

 You are probably wondering why people are still using hardcoded passwords. The main answer is because it is easier to do, and keeps the coding process less complicated.

 In addition, hardcoded passwords are made to never be changed, therefore, they represent a part of the code language. Many developers fear changing them so as not to interrupt different types of operations within the system.

 If you take into account that a medium-sized organization may have hundreds or thousands of passwords and other secret data spread across all devices, applications, and systems, you can assume that it is not an easy process to fix hardcoded credentials.

 A PAM (Privileged Access Management) solution helps improve application security posture by reducing human error, automating security-related tasks, and improving perception and governance. 

 As for changing credentials, it is possible to schedule automatic rotation and impose the use of strong and exclusive credentials without the need to intervene manually in all applications that use them. 

 senhasegura allows the easy removal of passwords and hardcoded credentials from data sources through scripts, application codes, configuration files, and SSH keys via servers. The password vault connects to the main servers and synchronizes the password change with the database. The application, therefore, does not lose connection.

 The integrated application can access the senhasegura API at any time and receive the updated password of the resource to be accessed. In this way, this critical data will be inaccessible to all attackers and malicious users.

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Virtually every day we see news of data breaches, which affect organizations of all types and sizes. From startups to global companies, they are subject to cyber attacks aimed at stealing (or even destroying) data. After all, the question is not “if”, but “when” an organization will fall victim to malicious attackers. And as much as vendors evolve their solutions and teams improve their cybersecurity posture, malicious actors have also been improving their attack techniques to circumvent the controls put in place. An analysis by the Identity Theft Resource Center indicated that there were 1862 data breaches in the year 2021 alone, a number 68% higher than in 2020. The segments most affected by these attacks include healthcare, finance and retail. And that number is expected to be even higher in 2022. The consequences of these attacks are not just financial: organizations are also subject to loss of reputation and trust from customers, partners, suppliers and even employees. After all, in times where data is considered the new oil, more and more people are considering the cybersecurity aspect when doing business with organizations. In recent years, millions of US user records have been publicly exposed, in many cases posted on the dark web or sold to third parties for malicious actions. For organizations, financial losses are increasing: according to IBM and the Ponemon Institute in their Cost of a Data Breach 2021 report, the average cost of a data breach was USD 4.24 million, an increase of 9 .8% compared to 2020. Continue reading this article to learn about the 8 biggest data breaches that have occurred in the United States of all time, and the consequences for users and organizations.

1. Yahoo – the data leak that occurred at the tech giant is one of the best known in the cybersecurity market. Between 2013 and 2016 a series of cyberattacks allowed Russian cybercriminals to gain access to the personal data of more than 3 billion users. These attacks earned the company a fine of USD 35 million, in addition to a few dozen lawsuits.
   
   
2. Microsoft – nearly 30,000 US companies (60,000 globally) were affected by one of the largest cyber attacks in US history. In early 2021, criminals exploited four zero-day flaws in Microsoft Exchange email servers to gain unauthorized access to users’ electronic messages. The US government has accused a cyber gang sponsored by the Chinese government of being behind the attack.
   
   
3. First American Financial Corp. – a series of flaws in the digital protection mechanisms of this large financial institution allowed approximately 885 million sensitive records to be exposed on the internet. These records included bank account numbers and their statements, as well as money transfer receipts with social security numbers and driver’s licenses. While not considered a leak, as no data was compromised, the SEC fined First American nearly $500,000.
   
   
4. Facebook – this is not the first time that Mark Zuckerberg’s social network has been involved in scandals of leaks and exposure of its users’ data. After the Cambridge Analytica episode, the names, phone numbers, usernames and passwords of 530 million users were exposed through third parties. After this episode, Facebook tightened the criteria for accessing third-party applications to its databases;
   
   
5. LinkedIn – in April 2021 malicious actors managed to exploit vulnerabilities in APIs to improperly obtain the personal data of more than 93% of the user database of the largest professional social network, which had approximately 750 million users at the time of the attack. Data such as names, phone numbers, location data and associated account details have been stolen, allowing malicious actors to misuse them to carry out phishing or ransomware attacks;
   
   
6. JP Morgan Chase – In a highly regulated industry, not even one of the largest US banks has been safe from cyber attacks. In September 2014, JP Morgan reported that cyber criminals compromised the accounts of over 76 million individuals and 7 million businesses. Fortunately, only names, emails and phone numbers were leaked, which didn’t save the giant from having to commit to spend USD 250 million annually to properly protect its customer data;
   
   
7. Home Depot – Using malware, criminals stole more than 56 million payment card records from Home Depot customers during April 2014. By 2020, the retailer had already spent over USD 180 million in damages, including damages to banks and credit card companies, in addition to paying compensation to those affected.
   
   
8. MySpace – although it no longer exists as a social network, MySpace attracts thousands of people to its site. In 2016 it was revealed that logins, names and birthdates of over 360 million users were leaked. MySpace was able to invalidate all login data and notify users, as well as having implemented stricter cybersecurity measures.