What is privileged session management?

Privileged Session Management (PSM) is an additional layer of Privileged Access Management (PAM) that controls, monitors and records the activities of privileged users. PSM ensures that organisations have complete visibility and control over privileged access to help secure their sensitive data and adhere to regulatory compliance. Privilege session managers include capabilities such as monitoring and auditing all privileged activity. With a privileged session manager, organisations can pause, lock or terminate sessions that are dangerous or suspicious.

Keep reading to learn more about privileged session management and how you can use it to protect privileged users.

What is a privileged session?

A privileged session is an internet session launched by a privileged user with access to highly sensitive databases, systems, devices and applications. These privileged sessions are made up of all the activity carried out by the privileged user during that session, including how long the user accessed the privileged resource and what they did with that resource.

The importance of privileged session management

Privileged session management is important to help organisations improve their security and reduce potential risks. It allows organisations to view how privileged accounts are being used and for how long. By monitoring, controlling and recording the activities of privileged users, organisations can quickly identify and prevent potential security breaches by threat actors and misuse by insider threats. If a security breach were to happen, an organisation could use a privileged session manager to look back and identify the source of the breach and develop solutions to remedy the situation. This can help stop the unauthorised user from moving laterally throughout the organisation’s network and obtaining elevated privileges. The organisation can then find solutions to prevent the security breach from happening again.

How privileged session management works

Privileged session management is made up of three main parts: monitoring, management, and auditing and reporting. Here is a closer look at how privileged session management works.

Privileged session monitoring

Privileged session management allows organisations to monitor privileged sessions in real time. With live monitoring, administrators can watch privileged sessions and identify any suspicious activity by potentially malicious users. A privileged session manager should also allow organisations to record privileged sessions for future analysis. It should record all text on the screen, excluding passwords, keystrokes and activity during the session. Due to the sensitive nature of these privileged sessions, it is critical that organisations take measures to protect these recordings from unauthorised access.

Management of privileged sessions

With privileged session management, organisations need to be able to control how sessions are initiated and whether or not they should continue. A privileged session manager allows organisations to pause, lock or terminate live privileged sessions. If the organisation identifies that a privileged session is suspicious, it can pause the session to take a further look at the activity. If the organisation determines the privileged session is safe, they can let the session resume. If the organisation determines the privilege session is malicious, they can terminate it.

Auditing and reporting of privileged sessions

Since privileged session management records privileged sessions, these recordings should be stored securely and used for future audit reviews. Privileged session managers should provide reporting capabilities that satisfy the needs of businesses to adhere to regulatory compliance and qualify for cyber insurance.

Privileged session management benefits

Privileged session management is an important aspect of privileged access management that helps monitor the activity of privileged accounts and prevent potential security breaches. Here are the benefits of privileged session management.

Improves security and reduces risks

Privileged session management helps improve the security of organisations and reduce the potential risks of unauthorised access. It allows organisations to see who is accessing privileged accounts and how they are used. Organisations can monitor, record and control the sessions of these privileged accounts to help identify any potentially dangerous activity. This helps reduce the risks of potential breaches by threat actors and misuse by insider threats. It also allows organisations to find solutions to prevent future security breaches.

Provides real-time monitoring

Privileged session management allows organisations to monitor the session of privileged accounts in real time. With live monitoring, administrators can watch the activity of privileged accounts and act quickly if they identify any suspicious activity. If administrators identify suspicious activity, they can pause or even terminate the session to prevent further damage from the potentially malicious user.

Adhere to regulatory compliance

Many organisations need to adhere to regulatory and industry compliance frameworks that require special management and auditing for privileged user accounts. With built-in auditing and reporting capabilities, privileged session management allows organisations to adhere to regulatory compliance frameworks such as GDPR, SOX, HIPAA, PCI DSS and FDDC.