". . temporary keys, permanent safety . ."
Let me level with you. From the hiring desk, the fastest way a solid security program falls apart is not a zero-day - it’s ordinary access used in extraordinary ways. A shared admin password here, a stale service account there, a ‘just for this week’ domain admin that becomes forever. That quiet, boring stuff? That’s where incidents grow teeth.
If identity is the new perimeter, privilege is the pressure point. PAM (Privileged Access Management) isn’t flashy, but it’s the seatbelt that saves lives.
Why PAM matters (the data behind the desk)
- Credentials keep showing up in breaches. Verizon’s DBIR shows the human element (phishing, stolen creds, error) in 60% of breaches, with stolen passwords in 22%. You don’t need an exotic exploit when a credential opens the front door. Cyber Security AseanVerizon
- Breaches are costly . . and rising. IBM pegs the average breach at $4.88M in 2024; higher in regulated sectors. That’s before you count the operational drag. wp.table.mediaIBM NewsroomIBM
- Dwell time is down, pressure is up. Mandiant reports 10 day median dwell globally. Good news for detection; bad news if privileged access lets an attacker escalate in minutes, not days. Google Cloudmile.cloud
- Admin rights are rocket fuel. Research long associated with Microsoft vuln trends shows the lion’s share of critical issues are neutralised when users don’t run as admin (a reminder that least privilege is still the best patch). BeyondTrust+1
In other words . . If you control who can do what, when, and for how long, you shrink blast radius, simplify forensics, and make attackers work for every inch.
PAM done right (what I listen for in interviews)
When a Candidate says they “did PAM,” I probe for these 5 anchors. If they can speak to outcomes here, they’re usually the real deal:
- JIT > standing privilege
Just-in-time elevation with approvals and time-bound access. Clear break-glass paths with post-use reviews. - Session control, not just vaults
Command-level logging, keystroke/video where appropriate, searchable transcripts, and alerting on risky actions (e.g. mass group changes). - Non-human identities are first-class
Rotating service & app accounts, secrets in a managed store, no hard-coded creds, and automated key rotation tied to CI/CD. - Endpoint privilege management (EPM)
Remove local admin by default; broker elevation per task/publisher; monitor bypass attempts. - Evidence, not assurances
Regular attestations, MAP of privileged groups, access recertification, and reports your auditors actually accept.
What great PAM portfolios include (signals from the hiring desk)
- A live or redacted MAP of privileged groups/accounts with owners and last-review dates.
- Before/after on local admin removal across endpoints . . with exceptions documented.
- A secrets rotation cadence wired into pipelines (with failure alerts).
- Session control examples: blocked high-risk verbs, replayable sessions, anomaly alerts that fed IR.
- A JIT policy that survived a pen test (or a real incident).
Anti-patterns that quietly kill programs
- Vaults with unchanged workflows (everyone still has standing admin)
- PAM only for humans; service principals untouched.
- Local admin ‘for productivity’ (No, really.)
- Refactors bundled into access changes (review noise and rollback pain).
- No inventory of privileged groups . . you can’t control what you can’t see.
The roles you actually need (and when)
- PAM Architect (or IAM Architect with PAM depth) - Designs the patterns, picks the guardrails, owns the roadmap.
- PAM Engineer - Connectors, policy, integrations (SIEM/SOAR/ITSM), hardens endpoints.
- Secrets/Service Identity Owner - Rotates, audits, and keeps pipelines clean.
- Governance Lead - Attestation cycles, evidence packs, and ‘speaks auditor’.
Not sure where to start? Begin with a fractional PAM Architect for 6 > 8 weeks to set patterns and a PAM Engineer to make them real.
Scale the team when the first wins land.
The best security hires I place, rarely brag about zero-days. They measure blast radius and make it smaller. They turn ‘please don’t click’ into ‘you can click - and we still won’t burn down’.
That’s PAM - The quiet layer that keeps bad days from becoming existential ones.
