". . Access, brokered behind the shield . ."
I hear the same post-incident confession again and again: “They didn’t break in - they logged in.” A reused admin password. A long-lived cloud key. A vendor account that never expired.
That’s why modern Privileged Access Management (PAM) isn’t just a vault you install, but a way you run access. And the people who make it work day-to-day? We call them Guardians.
First things first. What’s a Guardian?
A Guardian is not a product label and not a CyberArk job title. It’s a role. An accountable owner for a slice of privileged access.
Think “who owns how this kind of risky access is requested, granted, used, recorded, revoked, and reported?”
Different organisations cut this up differently, but the pattern is consistent:
- Human Access Guardian - Sets the rule that all admin access is brokered (jump/portal), time-boxed, and recorded.
- Secrets & Machine Guardian - Keeps credentials out of code and configs, issues short-lived secrets at runtime, and rotates them without drama.
- Cloud & SaaS Guardian - Turns permanent cloud admin into Just-In-Time roles; fences high-risk SaaS admin paths; manages break-glass.
- Platform/Data Guardian - Protects database, backup, and platform consoles behind auditable paths; proves who did what, when, and why.
- Third-Party Guardian - Gives vendors temporary, brokered access with recording — no VPN sprawl, no shared passwords.
You can implement this with CyberArk, with native cloud controls, or with other vendors. The role exists regardless of tooling.
So where does CyberArk come in?
CyberArk is a very good toolbox for Guardians:
- The Vault/CPM makes privileged credentials short-lived and rotated.
- PSM (session proxy) funnels RDP/SSH/console through a controlled, recorded path.
- PTA spots odd behaviour (the 2 a.m. helpdesk hop to Finance).
- Conjur / Secrets Manager gives apps and pipelines ephemeral secrets at runtime.
- EPM strips standing local admin and elevates only approved tasks.
Swap names if you like: Entra PIM for JIT roles, AWS Identity Center, GCP Workload Identity, Beyond Trust, Delinea, etc. The point is the operating model, not the logo.
A fluent, real-world picture
Picture a helpdesk phish. Without PAM, that password becomes lateral movement by lunchtime. With a Guardian model in place, two things happen:
- There’s only one road to privileged things - The session proxy. No direct server logins. Credentials don’t land on endpoints; they’re checked out, used, and rotated.
- Weird is obvious - Because baseline access is consistent, a 2 a.m. hop looks wrong immediately and gets flagged.
Or think about cloud. Yesterday’s “temporary” admin still exists six months later. A Cloud Guardian flips that to JIT: short sessions, approvals on high-risk scopes, and break-glass that’s rare, logged, and reviewed. Your engineers still move fast - they just stop leaving the doors wedged open.
Hiring for modern PAM (what I listen for)
When I interview PAM candidates, I’m not looking for brand recitals. I’m listening for habits:
- They route privileged access through a broker and can draw that path on a napkin.
- Zero Standing Privilege is the default; JIT and timeouts are normal, not exceptions.
- Secrets live in a manager, pulled at runtime; there are no long-lived keys in repos.
- They care about developer experience - elevation and secrets flows that make engineers faster, not slower.
- They can show before/after: direct admin logins dropped to zero; rotation time fell from days to minutes; standing cloud admins reduced by >80%.
Those are the people who quietly keep you out of breach reports.
If you’re implementing (and don’t want a revolt)
Start small, make the right path the fastest path, and measure what matters.
- Make the proxy the road. Funnel RDP/SSH/console through the broker (CyberArk PSM or equivalent). Close side doors.
- Shrink standing privilege. Turn domain/admin roles and cloud consoles into JIT with short sessions.
- Pull secrets out of code. Move to a manager (Conjur etc.); have pipelines fetch at runtime.
- Package endpoint elevation. Pre-approved elevation for common dev/admin tasks so people aren’t blocked.
Why the language matters
Calling these roles Guardians helps everyone remember this isn’t “install a vault and walk away.” It’s ongoing stewardship of risky access across people, machines, cloud, and vendors. CyberArk (or any platform) enables it, but people run it.
Modern PAM is simple to say and hard to fake. No permanent keys, one auditable road to privilege, secrets that evaporate, and clear ownership.
Get those habits in place (with CyberArk or equivalent) and you’ll keep admins quick, auditors calm, and attackers bored. And if you need the people who’ve done this before, you know where to find a recruiter who speaks their language.
