Today, almost all organizations rely on a variety of remote external vendors to access, maintain, and support critical internal systems and resources. These vendors now play an essential role in maintaining complex and distributed IT infrastructures in modern organizations. However, third-party access is not without support risks. While organizations may have extensive security measures in place to protect against attacks targeting internal accounts, the security of external vendors with access to internal systems is an overlooked issue.
About the Author David Higgins, Technical Director of EMEA at CyberArk. The use of third-party access is a concern, as recent data breaches have shown it to be a common factor in the success of cyberattacks. In January, collaboration provider Regus suffered a very notable breach in which details of employee performance were finally published online. The breach was a direct result of unsecured third-party access and occurred because Regus ordered a third-party to evaluate staff performance through secret filming. The results were accidentally revealed via a task management website. Threats related to third-party access are clear and growing, as the level of third-party use is much broader than expected. Despite this, it is still not prioritized, even if it is at the top of the list of potential targets for cyber attackers. Privileged third-party access pervades the enterprise today
Use by third parties is increasing
The scope of use by third parties today is truly staggering. Companies are increasingly looking to outsource internal functions and operations and external services. According to our recent study, a quarter of companies reported using more than 100 third-party providers, most of which required access to internal assets, data, and business applications to operate efficiently and fulfill their contracts. Our study also found that 90% of respondents allow third parties to access not only internal resources but also critical internal resources. This should be an immediate cause for attention for any RSSI. When a third party has access to critical data, the computer in question doesn't become as fast as its slowest man. In other words, companies that rely on third-party providers may have excellent cybersecurity measures in place, but that means nothing when the provider's access controls aren't secure. For many organizations, securing access for third-party providers is incredibly complex, often requiring a made-up solution of products like multi-factor authentication, VPN support, corporate laptops, directory services, agents, etc. This has not only created confusion and overload for security professionals, but also creates tangled and often insecure paths for third parties to access the systems they need to do their jobs.
Access by third parties is a priority to reduce risks.
Despite such use by third parties, and almost all of which require access to critical internal assets, companies still do not implement appropriate security measures. According to our research, 89% of companies believed they could do better or were completely dissatisfied with their efforts to secure third-party access. Despite this, third-party access was consistently in the top 10 organization-wide security risks, along with others such as cloud abuse, when cybercriminals exploit vulnerabilities in cloud computing environments, phishing, and insider threats. . Therefore, securing third-party access becomes a top priority for organizations, and for good reason. These attacks and the resulting data breaches can be extremely costly, both in terms of reputation and financial loss. Despite this, the same companies are extremely dissatisfied with how they currently approach access management and security for these remote providers.
Get the right of access to cybersecurity
If third-party access is one of the top 10 risks, why can't so many people secure it? Sourcing and downsizing can be a lot like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. You can't allow too much access, where providers have access to things they don't need or for longer than necessary, or too little, where providers are forced to create dangerous backdoor routes for critical resources The level of access must be fair . Access provisioning and de-provisioning are often cited as the main obstacles to achieving this goal, lack of visibility is also a recurring problem. Legacy solutions currently dominate. Most modern organizations rely on VPNs to secure third-party access, but they were not designed to handle dynamic privileged access, which is a feature of modern requirements, such as role-based access protection and session recording. . Enterprises also don't have a holistic view of what third-party providers do once they authenticate, and that's a serious problem. The best practice is to log, record, and monitor privileged network activity, a common requirement for auditing and compliance. As organizations increasingly rely on third parties to get work done, the security challenges they face become harder to ignore. Without a dedicated solution to manage third-party privileged access, organizations were forced to use back-broadcast solutions such as VPNs.
Access to third parties
There are some neat solutions to this problem. The first response is to quickly set up secure, structured, multi-level privileged access controls. By introducing a process to govern the types of data and resources accessible by third parties and executing it on a case-by-case basis, companies can take a big step toward creating a more effective defense against third-party vulnerabilities. Alternatively, all-in-one SaaS security subscriptions are also available. These new solutions offer a blended approach by integrating standard security tools and services, including privileged identity management, resulting in an easy-to-deploy solution for securing third-party access. As a result, where securing one of the top enterprise security risks was once complex, organizations can now access all the tools they need through a single package, creating a much more digestible approach for businesses. who do not want to face the complexity of a tangled web of security measures. Securing third party access is clearly an issue that needs to be resolved, and quickly too. Incidents like the controversial Regus data breach show us just how costly these vulnerabilities can be if left unaddressed. Although the culprits are sometimes caught last, the human and business costs remain. When contemporary SaaS offerings provide all the necessary tools to protect an organization's external accounts, there is no excuse for third-party access to be unsecure and for businesses to operate freely.