How Widespread Are Your Administrator Accounts in Your Infrastructure Landscape?
Administrative accounts are the gateway to an organization’s digital infrastructure. The moment someone gains access to an administrative account, they can do anything from installing or uninstalling software to modifying sensitive data, executing scripts or commands, changing configurations, and managing virtual machines – no wonder they are considered the “keys to the kingdom“.
Your organization and its digital assets are safe as long as they remain accessible to only the right people. If they reach the wrong hands, it may lead to major cybersecurity incidents. But what happens when there are too many admin accounts or too many people within the organization who have privileged access with too little control?
This article examines the widespread proliferation of admin accounts, the security risks they introduce, and how organizations can regain control over their privileged access landscape.
Privileged Account Sprawl and The Hidden Risks
Privileged access is crucial for the functioning and maintenance of digital systems. However, only select users can be granted time-bound, carefully monitored privileged access to carry out business-critical tasks.
Privileged account sprawl is a condition when access privileges or access to privileged accounts are granted excessively to too many users across your IT environment. Privileged account sprawl often remains unnoticed in enterprise environments, posing significant risks to visibility and control.
As an excessive number of users gain privileged access to admin privileges, it becomes hard to keep track of them and monitor their administrative activities. This lack of visibility and control increases the risk of :
- Privilege abuse, where users with elevated access use their admin rights to do unauthorized tasks like installing software, accessing restricted data, or changing system configurations.
- Insider threat, which refers to the risks posed by insiders of the organization, including current or former employees, contractors, or partners, misusing privileged access to harm the organization, not necessarily with malicious intent but through negligence as well.
- Breach, which is a confirmed incident involving unauthorized individuals breaking into the enterprise’s digital infrastructure by identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities, stolen credentials, or misconfigured privileges.
- Lateral movement, a technique attackers use after breaching one system to move across the network, exploiting additional systems and escalating privileges to reach high-value targets like domain controllers or databases.
Admin sprawl also grants administrative privileges to users who should not have them, thus undermining the principle of least privilege, erasing access boundaries, and making it difficult to maintain security compliance. If you do not identify and address admin sprawl on time, it can lead to:
- Compromised credentials
- Shared or unmanaged accounts
- Fragmented access logs
- Privileged access abuse
- Untraceable changes or actions
- Poor accountability
- Delays in breach detection and response
- A much larger attack surface
Risks of Admin Privileges on Regular User Workstations
When there is privileged account sprawl in the organization, users may access unmanaged or shared privileged accounts from regular user devices rather than the hardened workstations meant for administrative tasks. Many organizations unknowingly allow end users to operate with local admin rights on their personal workstations. It may result in:
- Users disabling security software
- Installing unapproved applications and even malware
- Changing configuration without authorization
- Privilege escalation
- Easier lateral movement for attackers
- Inability to enforce consistent security policies
If Admin Sprawl is Harmful, Why Do Organizations Accumulate Too Many Admins?
Usually, privileged access is granted to multiple users for operational convenience. It often takes a few administrators to complete extensive administrative work across the organization. So, many users have privileged access most of the time. However, admin sprawl happens when administrator accounts proliferate. This increase in admin accounts and widespread privileged access within the organization may happen due to
- Legacy systems requiring static admin credentials
- Failing to revoke temporary elevated access
- Broad roles that grant excessive rights to regular users
- Lack of oversight of privileged access permissions
- Lack of centralized privileged access security enforcement
A clear privileged access management (PAM) or privileged user management (PUM) process is critical for preventing admin sprawl and keeping admin accounts safe.
So, What Can You Do to Reduce and Control Privileged Access?
Now that you have admin sprawl, it is vital to manage the situation by assessing the inventory of privileged accounts, enforcing the least privilege principles, putting control measures in place to manage access at endpoint and infrastructure levels, and following best practices, including:
- Conducting a complete audit of admin accounts across systems
- Revoking excessive or outdated admin rights
- Setting clear boundaries and enforcing role-based access control
- Implementing Just-In-Time (JIT) privilege elevation mechanisms
- Creating segregated admin accounts for various admin duties
Once you restrict the number of privileged accounts and reduce the number of users with privileged access, you must ensure excessive privileged access is not granted in the future and that privileged accounts are managed with more control and oversight. To ensure that, you must tighten your security strategy, implement security policies, and establish governance structures that enforce privileged access security and admin account hygiene across the enterprise. You can achieve these by implementing governance actions, including:
- Periodic privileged access reviews
- Approval workflows for privilege elevation
- Monitoring and recording of all privileged sessions
- Stakeholder training on responsible admin access behaviors
- Aligning privileged access practices with compliance and regulatory frameworks
Final Thoughts: Scaling Back Privileged Access and Preventing Admin Sprawl
Admin access is a critical component for the organization to function smoothly. However, uncontrolled privileged access is dangerous. By recognizing the admin sprawl, revoking prolonged elevated privileges, reducing the number of privileged accounts, and implementing structured Privileged Access Management (PAM) and Privileged User Management (PUM), you can shrink the attack surface and regain control over your digital infrastructure.
FAQs
1. What is the difference between a privileged account and an admin account?
A privileged account has elevated permissions for sensitive tasks. Admin accounts are a subset of privileged accounts that often hold the highest level of system control.
2. What are the requirements for privileged access?
Strong identity verification, time-bound access, auditability, and clear need-to-know basis are core requirements for granting privileged access.
3. What is the risk of privileged access?
Uncontrolled privileged access increases the risk of breaches, data theft, ransomware attacks, and insider threats.
4. How do I protect my privileged account?
Use strong passwords, enable MFA and password rotation, avoid always-on privileges, and ensure session logging and regular access reviews are in place.
