Centrify, a leading provider of cloud-ready†Zero Trust Privilege†to secure modern enterprises, announced a free cloud-based Privileged Access Management (PAM) offering for the more than half of organizations that do not have a password vault. Centrify’s†Free Tier Vault†is available immediately in the AWS Marketplace, enabling organizations of any size to start controlling privileged access to critical systems and sensitive data in minutes, delivering PAM-as-a-Service.
Forrester Research estimates that 80% of all hacking-related data breaches involve privileged access abuse. Yet a†recent survey†of 1,300 organizations by Centrify revealed that 93% believe they are at least somewhat prepared against threats that involve privileged credentials even though 52% of those same organizations are not doing the basics by controlling privileged access with a password vault. Centrify’s Free Tier Vault offers all the benefits of its SaaS†Privileged Access Service†to manage up to 50 registered systems and their associated service accounts free of charge. For an additional fee, the Free Tier Vault can also leverage Centrify Brokered Authentication Services to extend enterprise authentication to cloud workloads including Amazon EC2 instances and Azure instances by brokering authentication to a range of directory services, thus eliminating local identity silos, site-to-site VPNs, or duplicate directories in the cloud.
“Our research tells us that the vast majority of organizations are misinformed when it comes to the real cybersecurity threats their organizations are facing, and about how prepared they are to reduce their risk of being breached,” said Tim Steinkopf, CEO at Centrify. “Our Free Tier Vault is full-featured and immediately available for free for up to 50 registered systems and their associated service accounts. Any organization of any size in any industry that doesn’t currently have a password vault, or is starting a departmental or small cloud project, should try it now before they become the next victim of a data breach.”
The Centrify Privileged Access Service allows organizations to secure and manage superuser and application accounts on servers and network devices and provide secure remote access to resources whether they’re on-premises or in the cloud without the use of a VPN. It can store and manage secrets and enable secure communication between applications, containers, and microservices. In addition, Centrify Privileged Access Service provides access to critical shared account passwords while maintaining control over who has access, which passwords they have access to, and how those passwords are managed and rotated. For example, organizations can vault the password for their AWS root account and enforce†Multi-Factor Authentication†(MFA) for emergency access. Centrify’s survey discovered that 58% of organizations do not use MFA for privileged administrative access to servers, which is a critical first step to verify the identity of who is requesting access to the vault.
“Many organizations, including small- to medium-sized enterprises, don’t know where to start when it comes to securing privileged access,” said Garrett Bekker, Principal Security Analyst at 451 Research. “In reality, some of the basic steps to institute controls on privileged access – like password vaulting and MFA for administrative access – can significantly harden any enterprise’s security posture and be implemented as cloud services without a large upfront investment.”
“At the end of the day, we want every organization to be starting down the path to Zero Trust Privilege – that means taking a ‘never trust, always verify, enforce least privilege’ approach to PAM. Our Free Tier Vault can help get them on that path quickly, easily, and affordably,” said Steinkopf.
