Keeper Security highlights S&P Market Intelligence’s latest research showing that lack of privileged access management (PAM) leaves small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) vulnerable to attack.

Most successful breaches involve stolen or compromised credentials that are used to escalate privileges and move laterally across a network, something which privileged access management (PAM) offerings are ideally suited to protect against.

Keeper Security, the provider of zero-trust and zero-knowledge cybersecurity software protecting passwords, secrets and connections, highlights S&P Market Intelligence data showing that just 43% of SMBs have deployed PAM.

This is compared to other security technologies like network, email and endpoint security and SIEM tools, which are all above 75% deployment.

Keeper Security says that PAM products have typically been highly complex, expensive to deploy and maintain and extremely difficult to use. Furthermore, they require substantial dedicated staff to operate, putting them out of reach for most smaller businesses. 

Darren Guccione, CEO and Co-Founder at Keeper Security, says privileged access management is becoming even more crucial in an era of hybrid working environments. 

“With the expansion of the attack surface due to remote and hybrid working, privileged access management is becoming increasingly critical,” says Darren Guccione. 

“At the same time, the definition of a ‘privileged user’ needs to widen to address a broader range of employees, especially in small businesses, where access rights may be more pervasive.” 

“However, SMB adoption of PAM is lagging due to traditionally high barriers of entry, which is making them low-hanging fruit for attackers.” 

“In order to bolster security, organisations should seek flexible, easy-to-use, cloud-based PAM solutions that are cost-effective and offer a full stack of IAM capabilities,” says the CEO and Co-Founder of Keeper Security.

As cloud-native PAM adapts to a ‘shift left’ world, the report highlights that it must also address a broader range of resources, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), containers, Kubernetes and serverless functions, Infrastructure as code and more.

Consequently, PAM must support a broader range of users, all of which have access to digital intellectual property and other confidential and sensitive company data.

Keeper Security’s next-generation KeeperPAM solution is specifically designed for perimeterless and multi-cloud environments without prohibitive costs or deployments associated with traditional PAM solutions.

It is designed to address the need to achieve visibility, security, reporting and control across an entire organisation, for every user, on every device, from every location.

Keeper Security’s privileged access management solution deploys in minutes and seamlessly integrates with any tech stack to prevent breaches, reduce help desk costs and ensure compliance. 

Trusted by millions of individuals and thousands of organisations, Keeper is an expert in password management, secrets management, privileged access, secure remote access and encrypted messaging.