Micro Focus Privileged Account Manager

Short Summary

Digital transformation is reshaping how IT is delivered and governed: organizations must become more agile and innovative while simultaneously keeping up with expanding regulation, continuously improving security controls, and defending against a growing volume of attacks. Smart manufacturing and the Internet of Things further enlarge the attack surface, increasing the urgency of protecting high-value systems and data. Privilege Management is positioned as a central countermeasure because attackers frequently target privileged accounts, whose users have broad access to sensitive assets such as HR data, financial information, payroll, and intellectual property. Strengthening protections around these accounts can reduce the risk of major breaches and also helps detect long-running, previously undetected attacks that evade signature-based anti-malware; anomaly and outlier detection is emphasized as a necessary complement.

The text defines expected Privilege Management capabilities across shared account password management, privileged single sign-on, privileged account discovery and lifecycle management, and session monitoring/recording/analysis for both command-line and GUI sessions. Micro Focus, following its 2017 acquisition of HPE’s software division, expanded scale and scope to serve hybrid enterprises that must integrate on-premises and legacy environments with cloud assets for increasingly mobile users.

Micro Focus IAM offerings draw on Novell/NetIQ technology, with NetIQ Privileged Account Manager (PAM) as the core product. NetIQ’s strategy centers on centralization: privileged credentials are stored encrypted in a vault accessed through PAM, enabling comprehensive logging and policy enforcement down to commands/transactions. PAM supports credential checkout controls, post-use password changes, application-to-application password management via REST APIs, browser-based privileged SSO (including RDP relay), discovery via PAM Sniffer, and deep session capture including searchable video. Real-time alerting, color-coded risk flags, automated session termination, and compliance auditing are key strengths, while advanced analytics and strong authentication often require integration with other products, adding complexity.

Interesting Facts

• Micro Focus completed its acquisition of HPE’s software division on September 1, 2017.
• The HPE Software addition tripled Micro Focus’ revenue to US$4.4 billion.
• Micro Focus had about 15,000 employees and over 50,000 customers worldwide after the acquisition.
• Micro Focus became the world’s seventh largest pure-play enterprise software company following the acquisition.
• Micro Focus IAM products are rooted in Novell and NetIQ technology acquired with Attachmate in 2014 and still sold under the NetIQ brand.
• NetIQ’s Privilege Management product set includes Privileged Account Manager, Change Guardian, and Directory and Resource Administrator.
• PAM Sniffer was released with NetIQ PAM version 3.2 in June 2017.
• PAM Sniffer can discover privileged accounts across standalone Windows/UNIX/Linux systems, AD domains, Directory Groups, and IP ranges.
• NetIQ PAM can capture command-line and GUI activity, including video for GUI sessions.
• Dual-key security in NetIQ Directory and Resource Administrator requires two administrators to confirm a change in access.

Notable Quotes

• “Privilege Management is a critical component of an enterprise’s overall Cybersecurity program since attackers frequently target high-privilege accounts.”
• “The users of the privileged accounts have the broadest access to sensitive company data such as HR records, financial information, payroll details or a company’s intellectual property.”
• “Traditional technologies such as signature-based Anti-Malware don’t help in these scenarios.”
• “New Cybersecurity tools looking for anomalies and outliers can help identify such long-running attacks.”
• “Privilege Management is focused on mitigating risks and in protecting the crown jewels of organizations: their most valuable digital assets and systems.”
• “NetIQ’s Privilege Management strategy is built around centralization.”
• “High-privilege credentials are kept in encrypted form in a secure vault, which is only accessed via NetIQ PAM.”
• “Privileged-credential passwords may be changed after every use, again based on credential policies.”
• “The Remote Desktop Protocol Relay (RDP Relay) feature offers Single Sign-on capability and remote access to Windows desktops through a secured connection.”
• “Policies can also provide for automated termination of privileged sessions in defined circumstances.”