The power of privilege

There's an old saying that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." While traditionally applied in the political arena, the same concepts hold true for most organisations from a security perspective. Unchecked power, often in the form of access rights and privileges, can lead to damaging security incidents in any organisation.

Often, the most powerful entities in any organisation are found in the form of privileged accounts and identities, since they provide the widest and deepest access to systems and their underlying data. These accounts enable the most influential IT users in an organisation to accomplish their tasks with the required elevated permissions, access rights and administrative capabilities. Often these accounts are the least managed, monitored or controlled. They provide anonymous or untracked access, since these are shared, generic accounts that are not typically associated with an individual user.