To support business development and combat cyberattacks, Turnkey’s client continously works to minimise risk exposure and manage user access to its highly privileged systems across its IT landscape.
The complexity of managing large numbers of subsidiaries, locations, and employees while maintaining effective security controls and user access authorisations is a constant challenge. Unauthorised access and other vulnerabilities are increasing threats with the acceleration of digital and cloud technologies.
Turnkey’s client had previously deployed Privileged Access Management (PAM) into the organisation but only in limited use cases, such as for a password vault, and not across the entire business. To enable its IT admins and third parties to better manage its systems and applications using privileged access, the client wanted to apply a PAM tool across its entire estate, giving a much better risk reduction and user experience.
Undertaking a detailed PAM assessment would underpin how Turnkey’s client could achieve its strategic objectives. It involved looking at the PAM market to see what others are doing in this space, as well as how PAM could dynamically keep pace with the client’s move to a cloud-first strategy. It would also clarify the client’s PAM needs for its mergers and acquisitions, reduce cyber risk involving privileged access, and ensure it aligns with NIST and SOX regulations.
Finally, the assessment would look at different vendors in the marketplace to identify how best the client could best upgrade its legacy PAM solution to a more future-proofed state.
Turnkey applied an in-depth approach to understand its client’s business processes and requirements. Business Analysts reviewed documentation and conducted interviews, actively engaging with key stakeholders. Detailed assessment and information gathering identified potential gaps in the client’s current PAM implementation and processes.
Drawing on its risk management expertise, proven benefits-driven methodology, and previous experience of working with the client, Turnkey was able to align the information to the client’s business drivers and create a roadmap with priorities for the business to consider addressing over a programme of work. The process included an assessment of the latest technologies on the market and associated costs, and, where possible, arranged product demonstrations and points of contact. Turnkey thereby identified the PAM technologies and vendors that would meet the client’s requirements going forward.
The output focused on assessing the existing PAM product and looking at other solutions to ensure the client’s full requirements were addressed, including how to most effectively reduce risk and improve security whilst providing an excellent user experience. It needed to provide a rough order of magnitude costing to support budget decisions, together with a threeyear strategic plan to help the organisation achieve ROI on the items identified in the shortest time, with the maximum benefit to the business.
Turnkey defined a PAM strategy to achieve standardisation across the business. This involved identifying the target operating model for deploying the solution and managing it after delivery, with a focus on continuous improvement. Once the capabilities had been delivered into the organisation, support-level needs were assessed for this highly critical system requiring 24x7 coverage. The strategy and target operating model created by Turnkey fed into a business case. This enabled the client to set out a three-to-five-year plan to improve its PAM capabilities and deploy, manage, and operate the solution across its entire user base, application estate, and that of its third parties.
The strategic PAM initiative led by Turnkey Consulting has empowered the client to take a more proactive and standardised approach to managing privileged access across its vast and complex IT landscape.
The detailed strategy and operating model developed by Turnkey have provided the client with a clear, actionable roadmap for the next three to five years, ensuring alignment with industry best practices and regulatory requirements such as NIST and SOX.
Key outcomes include a significant reduction in cyber risk through enhanced governance and security controls as well as cost savings in user administration and technical support. The streamlined PAM processes have also improved the user experience, allowing IT administrators and third parties to manage privileged access more efficiently.
Moreover, the client now has a robust plan in place to achieve a rapid return on investment (ROI) while leveraging its security program as a strategic enabler for business growth. With the clarity gained from Turnkey’s assessments and recommendations, the client is wellpositioned to make informed investment decisions that will maximise business value and ensure the long-term success of its Privileged Access Management (PAM) strategy.