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Introduction:
Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Privileged Access Management (PAM) are two foundational pillars of modern cybersecurity strategy. While IAM governs broad user authentication and authorization across an organization’s digital landscape, PAM serves as the critical specialized layer designed to lock down and monitor the most powerful accounts with access to crown jewel assets. Understanding the distinct roles and technical implementations of each is paramount for building a resilient security posture.
Learning Objectives:
- Differentiate the core functions, scope, and use cases of IAM and PAM solutions.
- Implement critical commands and configurations to audit and harden both general user and privileged access.
- Develop a layered defense strategy that integrates IAM principles with strict PAM enforcement.
You Should Know:
1. Auditing Azure AD User Permissions with PowerShell
`Get-AzureADUser -ObjectId “[email protected]” | Get-AzureADUserAppRoleAssignment`
This PowerShell cmdlet, part of the AzureAD module, fetches all application role assignments for a specified user in Azure Active Directory. It is essential for auditing which enterprise applications a standard user can access, a core IAM function.
Step‑by‑step guide:
1. Open Windows PowerShell as an administrator.
- Install the AzureAD module if not present: `Install-Module -Name AzureAD`
3. Connect to your tenant: `Connect-AzureAD`
- Run the command, replacing `[email protected]` with the target user’s UPN.
- Review the output to identify any over-provisioned access to SaaS applications.
2. Enforcing Just-In-Time (JIT) Access with PAM
`Request-PrivilegedAccess -Resource “SRV-DB01” -Role “Administrator” -Reason “Emergency patching” -Duration “2”`
This is a conceptual command from a PAM solution like CyberArk or Microsoft PIM. It requests temporary, approved elevation to a privileged role on a specific resource, embodying the principle of least privilege.
Step‑by‑step guide:
- A sysadmin needs to perform emergency maintenance on a database server.
- Instead of using a standing admin account, they invoke this command via their PAM portal or CLI.
- The request is logged and may be sent for approval based on policy.
- Upon approval, the PAM system grants access for the specified duration (e.g., 2 hours).
- After the time expires or the session is ended, the privilege is automatically revoked.
3. Hardening Linux Sudoers Configuration
`visudo`
The `visudo` command safely edits the `/etc/sudoers` file, which controls which users can run what commands with elevated privileges on a Linux system. This is a fundamental PAM control at the OS level.
Step‑by‑step guide:
1. SSH into your Linux server.
- Run `sudo visudo` to open the sudoers file in a safe edit mode.
- To restrict a user (
appuser) to a single command: `appuser ALL=(ALL) /usr/bin/systemctl restart nginx`
4. To log all sudo commands for a group (admins): `Defaults:%admins logfile=/var/log/sudo.log`
5. Save and exit. These configurations prevent lateral movement and provide crucial audit trails.
4. Querying AWS IAM Policies with CLI
`aws iam list-attached-user-policies –user-name test-user`
This AWS CLI command lists all managed IAM policies that are directly attached to a specified IAM user. It’s a critical audit command for understanding cloud IAM permissions.
Step‑by‑step guide:
- Ensure the AWS CLI is configured with appropriate read-only credentials.
- Run the command, replacing `test-user` with the actual IAM username.
- The output will provide the ARNs of attached policies.
- To see the actual permissions in a policy, use: `aws iam get-policy-version –policy-arn [bash] –version-id v1`
5. This helps identify if a user has excessive permissions like `s3:` orec2:TerminateInstances.
5. Detecting Kerberoasting Attacks with Windows Command
`Get-WinEvent -FilterHashtable @{LogName=’Security’; ID=4769} | Where-Object {$_.Message -like “0x17”}`
This PowerShell command queries the Windows Security event log for Kerberoasting activity, an attack that targets privileged service accounts (a failure of PAM). It filters for TGS requests (Event ID 4769) that use weaker RC4 encryption (0x17).
Step‑by‑step guide:
- Open PowerShell as an administrator on a Domain Controller or a system collecting Windows Event Logs.
- Run the command to search for suspicious service ticket requests.
- A high volume of these events from a single source can indicate an active Kerberoasting attack.
- This highlights the need to enforce AES encryption for service accounts and implement strong PAM controls around them.
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Rotating a Privileged SSH Key using HashiCorp Vault
`vault write ssh/keys/rotate/root`
This command, for use with HashiCorp Vault’s SSH secrets engine, forces the rotation of a privileged SSH key. Automated, periodic credential rotation is a non-negotiable tenet of PAM.
Step‑by‑step guide:
- Ensure Vault is unsealed and you are authenticated with a token that has the correct capabilities.
- Configure the SSH secrets engine at a path like
ssh/. - To rotate the static root credential used by the engine, run the rotate command.
- Vault will automatically generate a new key, making the previous one invalid.
- This process can be automated on a schedule, drastically reducing the attack window from a compromised key.
7. Scanning for Vulnerable sudo Versions (Baron Samedit)
`sudo –version`
While simple, this command is the first step in mitigating one of the most critical PAM-related vulnerabilities (CVE-2021-3156). It displays the currently installed version of `sudo` so you can check it against known vulnerable versions.
Step‑by‑step guide:
1. Connect to a Linux host.
2. Run `sudo –version`.
- If the output shows a version between 1.8.2 and 1.8.31p2 or 1.9.0 through 1.9.5p1, the system is vulnerable.
- The immediate mitigation is to update the `sudo` package using the OS package manager (
yum update sudo,apt upgrade sudo). - This underscores the need to include privilege escalation binaries in vulnerability management programs.
What Undercode Say:
- IAM is Your City’s Traffic Laws; PAM is the Armed Guard at the Power Plant. IAM efficiently directs the flow of millions of legitimate users, ensuring they get to the right office building (application) without crashing. PAM is the extreme vetting, monitoring, and time-limited access granted to the single engineer allowed to touch the main reactor core. You cannot run a city with just one or the other.
- The Most Devastating Breaches Start with a Failure of PAM. Attackers don’t stop after phishing a standard user’s credentials (an IAM failure). They pivot, escalate, and hunt for privileged keys, service accounts, and domain admin credentials. A robust IAM foundation is useless if your PAM walls are made of paper, as these accounts are the literal keys to the kingdom.
The conflation of IAM and PAM is the most common and costly architectural flaw in enterprise security. Organizations invest heavily in single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) for IAM, creating a strong outer shell, but neglect the privileged pathways inside. This creates a dangerous asymmetry: defenders see IAM and PAM as separate checkboxes, while attackers see them as a connected kill chain. The modern strategy must be integrated—using IAM context (user, device, location) to dynamically inform PAM policies, granting privileged access only to verified identities from compliant devices. True security is not building taller walls, but ensuring the most sensitive doors require multiple, constantly-changing keys.
Prediction:
The manual, tool-centric approach to PAM will become obsolete within the next 3-5 years. The future of privileged access lies in its deep integration with Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) and AI-driven security platforms. PAM will evolve from a vault that statically holds credentials to an intelligent, policy-based decision engine. It will continuously analyze user behavior, endpoint telemetry, and threat intelligence feeds to grant adaptive, just-in-time privileges. Access to a critical server won’t just be based on approval, but on a real-time risk score calculated from the user’s login location, the patch state of their device, and the absence of anomalous activity, rendering traditional credential theft and lateral movement techniques ineffective.
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IT/Security Reporter URL:
Reported By: Priombiswas Itsec – Hackers Feeds
Extra Hub: Undercode MoN
Basic Verification: Pass ✅
