I'm using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager in the telecom industry, specifically for one of the clients. The main use case for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is the Endpoint Privilege Management part, where privileged access needs to be managed, monitored, and recorded as part of SOX compliance. Other major use cases involve event management, trigger management, and notifications for break glass scenarios for various customers.
Privileged Access Management
CyberArkExternal reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Offers quick access, ease of use, and seamless integration
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager offers various exposed REST APIs, allowing for quick onboarding and reporting from the SOX compliance perspective, which wasn't available before. The exposed APIs give us the flexibility to perform scripting using Python and other languages to develop native tools.
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager integrates with various incident management tools, enabling automated actions through triggers for generated events. The integration with Ignimission provides operations teams with a dashboard for compliance management more efficiently.
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager offers customers good visibility of accounts to onboard. The DNA tool provides an overview of their network entity, thereby helping them streamline their network from a privilege management perspective. They can see how many assets there are, how many assets have different accounts, and which accounts are currently active or not. From the dashboard, the customer has clear visibility.
Its integration is seamless with out-of-the-box connectors. You just need to provide the input in a configuration file. It can be integrated very easily.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager include quick access, ease of use, and a variety of connection methods beyond the web portal. The Just-in-Time functionality within CyberArk is very important, and recent features such as the MFA gateway allow external customers to perform their work while being monitored seamlessly. Any events not adhering to SOP trigger notifications to admins for prompt action.
What needs improvement?
Improvements in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager should focus on simplifying installation and upgrade times, and also consider making professional services training more accessible to implementers and partners. Free training for implementers should be offered, and the installation and upgrade process should take less time.
In addition to that, CyberArk should communicate their Impact events to customers and SI partners, and consider making them free, as these events showcase their roadmap and new features.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager for more than eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I find CyberArk Privileged Access Manager to be a stable solution and would rate its stability a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager an eight out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate CyberArk's customer support as a seven out of ten. The rating stems from the fact that sometimes critical issues require follow-ups, as the support team doesn't always recognize the urgency of a critical ticket immediately. There is a need for more dedicated support for some customers moving forward.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
The previous versions were a bit difficult, but the newer versions have improved. They have done some scripting for the installation part, which has improved the overall installation very much. There is still some scope for improvement. I'm looking for an automated script where all the entities or inputs can be provided. Once that script runs on a particular server, CyberArk gets installed without any user interruptions. Currently, we have to be very specific with prerequisites and everything else. If the prerequisites are not met, there are some issues, and you have to sometimes rebuild that particular server. To avoid such things, an automated script should be there to check the overall prerequisites. After installation, there should be a global script that checks all the functionalities to see whether every entity and every component has been installed correctly or not.
What about the implementation team?
I am the implementer for CyberArk. As an implementer, my customers are from various industries, currently managing customers from the healthcare, telecom, and semiconductor industries.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Since CyberArk is at the top of the Gartner list, the cost is indeed on the higher side, but customers must discern which entities are essential to purchase. They should weigh the cost against the quality received.
The setup cost for CyberArk depends upon the customer's infrastructure, and while it may be on the expensive side, the quality and support provided justify the investment, along with documentation and training that add value.
What other advice do I have?
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is the best solution for safeguarding sensitive patient data in healthcare, providing visibility and traceability that enhance compliance. Its strong design offers security and visibility for events across all industries, showcasing its robust capabilities. CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is crucial for safeguarding credentials in healthcare organizations.
I would recommend CyberArk Privileged Access Manager to those looking to use it. The biggest benefit is its versatility, providing comprehensive flexibility across various operational needs, while also offering expert support to resolve any issues encountered.
It stands out as the best tool on the market. It deserves a nine out of ten overall.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
An excellent solution with continuous upgrades and quick support
What is our primary use case?
We use CyberArk Privileged Access Manager for all kinds of privileged accounts, comprising personal accounts, service accounts, and different database accounts. We manage the administrator account for Windows, the root account and reconcile accounts for Unix servers, and system administrator accounts in databases. Personal accounts are also managed along with some shared service accounts.
I work for a cybersecurity reseller company, which is US-based, and we provide managed services to all kinds of industries. Currently, I am working with a natural resource and a healthcare company.
How has it helped my organization?
Many things have improved with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager. All privileged accounts are now secured.
The password management keeps the passwords rotated, and these have different sets of policies, which keep the passwords in compliance. Compliance-wise, it is good to have a PAM solution in the organization. I believe CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is the best one available at this point in time.
What is most valuable?
The best thing about CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is that they keep on upgrading it. They continually conduct research and development from their end, and we get immediate support from CyberArk whenever OEM support is required for any task. Support-wise, they are the best, and the way they conduct research and analysis and upgrade the tool often is excellent.
What needs improvement?
They keep on improving regularly. As of now, it does not manage all of the IDM practices. It is only good as a PAM solution. If they could work more on Privileged Threat Analytics, it would be beneficial. It has limitations, so improvements on PTA would be fine.
For how long have I used the solution?
I first used CyberArk Privileged Access Manager in 2016, and since then, I have worked on different tools as Cloakware, CA PAM, but I am now again working on CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, so it has been approximately seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
If implemented properly, the stability for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is very good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager as nine out of ten. It is very scalable, and you can manage more than 100,000 accounts, as I have worked in environments where we managed that volume and more.
We are partners with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager. Our clients are medium and small businesses. The number of accounts we manage in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is approximately 10,000 in one client and 5,000 in another.
How are customer service and support?
Support-wise, they are the best. I would rate the technical support for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager a nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used a very old tool called Cloakware before CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, created by CA Technologies. It later got upgraded to merge with CA Technologies, and we had a product called CA PAM, which later got improved into what we see in the market today, called BeyondTrust. Cloakware was not that organized. There were many issues with provider IDs, the interface was very old, and hardly any companies use it these days. When I was using it, I was working for a US-based bank. Comparing that with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is impossible, as they are poles apart.
How was the initial setup?
We have had cloud and on-premises deployments. Its deployment is easy. They have provided all kinds of documents. They are available in the community portal. You can get all kinds of help from the community or people using CyberArk and the OEM.
The duration of the deployment for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager completely depends on the environment. If it is a big environment, it may take up to one or two months sometimes. It depends on the collaboration of the teams. If the infra teams, the network side, and the OS side do not collaborate properly with the CyberArk team, it can take longer. However, if everything is in place and the environment is not huge, it takes less than a month, around 20 days.
The solution requires regular maintenance. You need to keep upgrading when updates are released by CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, and they do it quite often. Server patching is very important, and you need to be aware of the services running all the time. They have provided a system health feature to check if there are any component services that stop. All maintenance is required regularly, not daily but perhaps weekly, depending on the size of the environment. A good thing is that all of these can be automated. It saves a lot of time there.
What about the implementation team?
We have eight specialists in one team working with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager in my MSS team. There are other teams as well that have many CyberArk specialists, though I do not have an actual count.
What was our ROI?
It saves financially, though I cannot provide specific numbers. It is vital to have a PAM tool in your organization because it protects you from all kinds of malicious attacks, both insider and outside threats.
Regarding time-saving, many things are automated on CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, which helps us save considerable time work-wise and is very efficient for users. The end users have the authority to reconcile the password or verify it before using session isolation, which is one of the unique features that can be enabled through Privileged Session Manager, preventing any attacks from happening within the organization when connected with sessions through CyberArk Privileged Access Manager.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is quite expensive, and the pricing varies from region to region. In APAC, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager can be obtained for less than in North America, according to my understanding. Pricing-wise, they could improve by trying to sell their product in bulk licenses. You need to have a service provider or a reseller as the mediator company building the CyberArk Privileged Access Manager. Pricing-wise, they could definitely do a little better.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend CyberArk Privileged Access Manager to other users for all the reasons discussed. It has been number one on Gartner's quadrant for several years. Considering all those factors and being the best tool in the market for Privileged Access Management, it is recommended.
I would rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager a nine out of ten.
Helps secure our accounts and has good stability and support
What is our primary use case?
My use cases as of right now include configuration, implementation, and developing a PowerShell report.
What is most valuable?
By implementing CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, we wanted to secure the password data and password accounts. We could see the benefits of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager immediately after we deployed it and started using it.
What needs improvement?
They could improve CyberArk Privileged Access Manager by providing more reports. If I need to know the 10 most-used accounts for this week, that functionality can be made available in the reports.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager for seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable. The environment is stable, with no lagging, crashing, or downtime.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I cannot say much about scalability because we did not have any need for it.
How are customer service and support?
I have contacted their technical support plenty of times. I would rate CyberArk's support a seven out of ten. They are always good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have not used any alternatives to CyberArk Privileged Access Manager in my career.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment was easy because I went to training first. The training was set up by CyberArk. From design to implementation, it took close to six months.
In terms of maintenance, it requires OS upgrades and patches. It doesn't take a long time.
What about the implementation team?
We did not use any help from a third party, such as an integrator or consultant. The number of people required depends on the environment. I don't see how one person can manage it because there is a lot of information to collect before even doing a design.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My company always complains about the cost of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager because it's too high.
What other advice do I have?
For a new user, I would advise them to try to configure CyberArk Privileged Access Manager a couple of times before starting to use it in a production environment.
I would rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Provides good control over privileged access but users sometimes experience lagging
What is our primary use case?
We use CyberArk Privileged Access Manager to manage privileged access, so all the privileged accounts are vaulted in CyberArk, and that's our control method to manage privileged access. We also manage access for developers, so we have dual control to give approval to developers.
How has it helped my organization?
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager has made our operations more streamlined. There is an approval process, so it helps us keep tabs on who's working on what and for how long. We also have to give a reason when we're using privileged accounts, which helps keep track of whether they're being used correctly.
It's been good so far in safeguarding the infrastructure, but we've not used additional features of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager. Modern PAM with secure web sessions or secure infrastructure access is something that I learned about at the conference. I am curious about how we can use it.
It has not helped to reduce the number of privileged accounts. Whatever we find privileged in the environment, we want to control that by using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager. That's how we're able to control it. It has helped us identify privileged access better because we discovered users who didn't need privileged access. There have been cases where users with privileged access don't want their accounts in PAM because they need to pick up the password on a daily basis to perform their actions. There have been cases where they've gotten their privileged access off the account because it's not needed.
The user interface needs some training, but with a guide telling the user how to go about it, we have received positive feedback from whoever has used it.
It took us some time to realize its benefits because any new tool needs a proper understanding of how it can be used. A lot of testing was done on the engineering side, and demos were given. It took some time, but it is going smoothly.
What is most valuable?
Given that this is the only tool that I've worked with for the control process of privileged access, I don't have anything to compare it with. However, it's helped us keep our privileged access in check. We're able to get logs as to when the user checks out an ID and for how long, so it's a good monitoring tool.
What needs improvement?
They covered a lot at the conference. I don't have visibility into what product we've bought. It would be nice for them to approach us with what we have bought versus the new features being added. We need clarity on whether new features come included in the package that we already have, or if it's something that we need to have over and above.
Occasionally, there are lagging issues. Sometimes users have to re-login. When users copy passwords, there is sometimes a lag, so they have to log out and log in, but these are very rare cases.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using it for about 5 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Occasionally lagging occurs. I've not heard about crashing, but there is a lag. Sometimes users will have to re-login and get it right.
How are customer service and support?
The team that I work with is our in-house engineering team. I've had a conversation with CyberArk once last year revolving around efficiently generating the inventory reports. I contacted the technical support, but I didn't get a very straightforward solution that I was expecting.
We were developing a dashboard to find all the privileged accounts that weren't vaulted in CyberArk. We wanted the inventory report to be generated on a daily basis, but were having some trouble. We reached out to their technical support. The solution that they proposed was not straightforward because of the backend processes of CyberArk. We had to approach it in a different way.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
What other advice do I have?
I would rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager a seven out of ten.
Improves compliance and operational efficiency
What is our primary use case?
We're using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager to manage our service accounts, privileged service accounts, and password rotation. We also use Conjur.
How has it helped my organization?
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager has helped our organization remain compliant in the privileged access management space. It is very helpful for meeting compliance and regulatory requirements such as SOC, SWIFT, and PCI DSS.
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager has helped us become more efficient in managing these service accounts.
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager feels quite secure in ensuring data privacy.
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager has a very strong potential for preventing attacks and lateral movements, but it has not had an impact one way or the other on the number of privileged accounts in our organization. They are just managed differently.
What is most valuable?
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager makes it easy for users to retrieve and manage their passwords.
I have been using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager for a few months. I am still learning, and I appreciate all the networking and education at the CyberArk Impact in Boston, which is going to set me up for success as I take on my role.
What needs improvement?
In CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, the UI has room for improvement, as does the dashboard reporting, which could be made better or easier to use. The interface needs to be more intuitive in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager. There should be dashboards in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager with more data and reporting capability for the non-compliant scenarios.
For how long have I used the solution?
My company has been using it for a long time; I have been using it only for a few months.
How are customer service and support?
I have not had any support experience with CyberArk at this point in my journey.
I found the CyberArk Impact event to be much more effective as an educational experience.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What was our ROI?
The time-to-value for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager was recognized pretty quickly after implementing it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I hope to learn how the pricing works so that I can understand it better, but I am certain it is not inexpensive.
What other advice do I have?
It is absolutely necessary to have a PAM tool like CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, even if someone is using other security tools.
Based on my experience thus far, I would recommend CyberArk Privileged Access Manager to other users.
I would rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager as an eight out of ten. It is early in my journey with this solution.
Improves risk management with recorded sessions and flexible workflows
What is our primary use case?
My use cases for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager are specifically for privileged access management. We are using it along with other products. They have access management, their own certificate manager, and other managers. CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is for privileged access for users who require more than normal access, such as administrators and engineers. We can rely on this tool to manage that access.
How has it helped my organization?
You can see the benefits of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager immediately. This is risk management. You are not getting any features from the tool. It's not something that you are installing because you want it, for example, ChatGPT. With CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, you're getting control. You're not getting any additional features for your platform or systems. You are just controlling the risk. Users can't do what you aren’t allowing them. They can't make any change without approval, so it controls risks. Once you see that value, you're controlling what the privileged users in your system are doing.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature I find in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is that we can record the sessions. It provides flexible workflows. I can change the workflow to specify if it needs one approval or two approvals, and I can approve my peer. We can record sessions for external people who want or require privileged access to our systems. That is very flexible. We can record what people are doing in the platform.
What needs improvement?
I find it hard to mention a point of improvement because I'm happy with the platform. The only thing I would say is that they can improve their price.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Regarding the stability of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, I have seen a couple of times that the server was not available. In three years, it has only been a couple of times. It has high availability and low impact. In terms of the platform, it is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager has been good; the only thing is the license. The platform is very scalable, but you need to get more licenses in terms of users.
How are customer service and support?
I don't handle that kind of interaction, but my engineer does. Sometimes it requires escalation, but I have not heard of any complaints from him in terms of the support received. It is good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used Delinea but not in this company. I prefer CyberArk over Delinea.
How was the initial setup?
It is not that easy. You need to load the users and platforms that you will be using. You need to teach the users how to do it. It requires some change management. It is a bit complicated, but it is expected. It is not just plug-and-play.
Its maintenance depends. You can have an on-premise solution or you can have a cloud solution. We have an on-premise solution, so it requires some maintenance on the infrastructure.
What about the implementation team?
Its implementation requires a team effort
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
With the current model of licensing, for my use cases, sometimes it's hard to convince the management and get budget approvals for it. It's expensive and you're not getting anything new. It's just a control, but in terms of risk, you are covering a big impact on the company. Improvement in the licensing prices is something I would want to have.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager as an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Privileged access management escalates efficiently with robust access control and remote connectivity
What is our primary use case?
We use CyberArk Privileged Access Manager for privileged access management (PAM) escalation, securing our website, and applications. Our cybersecurity team actively utilizes its features.
What is most valuable?
The PAM escalation is valued. The access control feature and privilege and role-based assignment are outstanding. Dividing the user admin for security protection is the best feature. Additionally, its remote access allows easy connection for my team, and it efficiently manages identity.
What needs improvement?
Initially, it was challenging to understand and use all the features incrementally. Having a better user journey with a support team to connect would improve the product and services.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager for about eight months in our company.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is quite stable. We have not faced any issues related to stability since using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager for eight months.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is scalable. As a startup, it initially handled fewer users, but it scaled well as we grew.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support was fast in its replies and always supportive, helping to resolve any issues efficiently.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used miniOrange, an Indian-based cybersecurity product for access management and PAM escalation. We also used one more product, which I don't remember the name of.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward due to well-documented resources and tutorials.
What about the implementation team?
Our cybersecurity team, comprising two to three people, worked on the deployment and feature implementation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is quite well-structured with monthly and weekly plans.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I evaluated miniOrange and one other product.
What other advice do I have?
New users should watch the YouTube channel, read the documentation, check the resource section including CyberArk University, and see if it works well with their product. I rate the overall solution a nine. My overall product rating is 9 out of 10.
Provides centralized management, AI capabilities, and advanced threat detection
What is our primary use case?
We use CyberArk Privileged Access Manager to manage our privileged accounts because it protects against cyberattacks and prevents unnecessary or illegal access.
How has it helped my organization?
It provides a centralized management system, making it easier for us to enforce policies and monitor access across our organization. Additionally, we can monitor sessions and record and detect suspicious activities that are harmful to our systems and organization.
What is most valuable?
The AI capabilities, including advanced threat detection features, are very helpful for us. They reduce human effort and errors, allowing us to quickly identify and respond to threats. This solution scales up our IT environment and resolves almost every issue that poses a threat to our organization.
What needs improvement?
Pricing is a concern for me because it is not very user-friendly for startups, new users, or very small organizations. It might be better if the price was reduced. Sometimes, the maintenance cost can also be high.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager for the last one and a half to two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Every application has downtime. However, it remains stable overall. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.
How are customer service and support?
Sometimes, when I face issues or want to understand some features, or it is difficult to identify activities in our system, I contact the support team. They are very helpful, always available, and try to resolve our issues as soon as possible.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
This is the first PAM solution that I implemented in our organization.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not very easy, nor very difficult. It is moderate to deploy.
It does not require any maintenance from our side.
What about the implementation team?
We have a team of three to five members, and they deployed it in a minimum of one week.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Its price can be reduced.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I researched some solutions and found CyberArk Privileged Access Manager to be one of the good solutions. I am very happy with the product.
What other advice do I have?
I am happy with this product. If someone is looking for a PAM solution, I recommend it because it has a large developer community and good customer support. It is more stable than the others, and I am very happy with it.
Overall, I would rate it a ten out of ten.
Simplified access to credentials with continuous updates for better security
What is our primary use case?
We use CyberArk Privileged Access Manager to provide a protective layer for our infrastructure, as well as for our customers.
Additionally, the audit functionality that it provides is used as protection for our employees. It offers evidence, so if there's any question about wrongdoing, there's proof that the job was done correctly.
How has it helped my organization?
It's predominantly addressing challenges around reducing open access to critical infrastructure and providing a mechanism to control who can get to what and with what credentials.
It's improved the organization by making it easier to access privileged accounts. There are so many accounts needed by most people now and to have a a tool that can not only store those credentials for you, but manage them and give you easy access to them, has made life a lot easier. The removal of the need to manage and maintain those credentials and cycling passwords regularly is a pain for anybody. The tool manages all of that for you whilst giving you a simple means to use them.
What is most valuable?
The most beneficial feature in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is its simple user interface. It is definitely advantageous. I also appreciate the enhancements that come along with the continual updates that are provided.
It has improved the organization by making it simpler to gain access to privileged credentials. There are so many accounts needed by most people now, and having a tool that can not only store those credentials for you but also manage them and give you easy access has made life a lot easier. The tool manages credential cycling, which is typically a pain for anybody, while providing a simple means to use them.
The solution is very good for protecting full levels of data privacy. We silo out different parts of the solution for access to to different types of infrastructure in the same way we would to our customers so that we can restrict who can get to something. In combination with our IM processes, we can be quite granular about who has access to what.
We can stay updated on regulations. The updates that are coming through help to keep the product secure and also add in updates and enhancements that give greater functionality and keep it relevant in terms of requirements.
The controls are fairly granular. We can control who can administrate it and who can use it and what they can use when they're using it. It has positively impacted visibility. As we leverage the product for administration of the product, we're able to be much more granular in how we provide the access. The audit controls allow us to see who is doing what, and when, it should be required.
It safeguards credentials. This is very important. The ability to have the product manage and maintain credentials and only provide them to authorized individuals, whilst not actually allowing them to retrieve those credentials, has become more paramount as we look to increase the security based on sort of ongoing real-world threats.
It's helping with compliance, specifically around securing and hardening of infrastructure. It allows us to harden while still maintaining usability.
In terms of operational efficiency, it depends on where you're coming from. Some things are more efficient, some things are a little less efficient yet more secure. It's that ongoing balancing act between operation efficiency and security that we must deal with.
We've been able to reduce the number of privileged accounts in the organization with the ability to have shared accounts. Since the credentials are not specific to a user and they're made available to a user for the duration of their session, we can reduce the number of privileged accounts we have within the organization. We've reduced the accounts by a half to a third between ourselves and our customers.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see an easier way to define delegated roles within the administration of the core product. There is granularity within the tool, however, it is not simple to define those specific delegated roles.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used the solution for about nine years; it's been quite a while.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have had some performance and stability issues. We have had instances where things weren't as they should be, however, we worked closely with the development support teams once the issues were escalated and managed to find either a resolution or a workaround to stabilize the solution. Typically, it is fairly stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Initially, we found some issues with scalability, however, over time, the guidelines and recommendations from the vendor have changed. By working closely with the available guidelines, the scalability is absolutely fine.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service is generally quite good, although if it's more complicated, you have to wait for it to be passed back to their dev support, which can take more time. For simpler issues, the turnaround is relatively quick. If more complicated, it can take longer to get the right level of support.
However, the support they provide is usually good, particularly their dev guys, who certainly know what they're talking about.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, we didn't have a PAM product itself. We were using Citrix to provide remote access, but the need to move into the PAM space arose to provide extra security and audit control.
Although I wasn't involved with the process, there was a competition to define which product would be used, and the CyberArk Privileged Access Manager product came out on top.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is relatively straightforward once you've done it. It is certainly a lot easier to repeat. We have multiple instances of the on-prem deployed, so we've done it a few times now.
What about the implementation team?
The deployment involved approximately four or five people, based on role separation. In a smaller organization, it could likely be done with one or two people. However, due to the need to separate functions for design, implementation of the service, product implementation, network and firewall requirements, and IAM processes for all accounts, several people are required to ensure these functions are covered.
What was our ROI?
From a security perspective, we started seeing value right away because we didn't have a PAM solution at the time. Over the next sort of months and years, we settled into the product and started to look at how we could make it work for us. This has been an ongoing process over the years, particularly with product enhancements and new features, which provide additional benefits against the incurred costs.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm not involved in the pricing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
About a year ago, we started looking at potential alternatives. There were two others that were considered and were ruled out for various reasons before looking at additional proof of concepts to see what other features could be leveraged from CyberArk Privileged Access Manager that we weren't using. It managed to pass all of the requirements.
What other advice do I have?
We have customers for various industries and use the product internally ourselves. We are in the IT sector and provide services to organizations in a variety of sectors.
It's definitely worth looking at as a PAM tool. I would steer towards the SaaS version since everything suggests that it is potentially a better way to go than on-prem. However, on-prem would still be suitable for those who must control and own their data.
It's still worthwhile implementing, and overall, I'd probably give it an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Improved security infrastructure and reduced risks through comprehensive credential management
What is our primary use case?
My company partners with CyberArk. I come from a service provider standpoint, so I don't use CyberArk within my company, however, I implement and support it for customers.
Through the CyberArk partnership, I am certified in CyberArk. I perform activities such as demonstrations, presentations, deployments on-premises, and cloud solutions.
CyberArk is now a comprehensive identity security solution. My interaction with CyberArk is mostly on the implementation side for our customers, focusing on design and integrating it into customer environments.
It's used in industries such as banking and finance.
What is most valuable?
I find the discovery feature, which includes credential management, session management, monitoring, and remediation within a session, to be very valuable. It can remediate bad activities occurring in sessions. It offers good management and monitoring as well as good remediating within a session to help users remediate within managed sessions. There's good auditing and activity monitoring.
The session monitoring helps enhance security protocols. With it, users can have more control over what's happening within the session. You have more visibility and can restrict certain activities from happening, such as someone running a malicious command or someone trying to open or edit some sort of platform configurations. You can also send notifications and remediate or terminate sessions. Monitoring helps you build in polices around how to build polices around what's happening within a session.
The implementation of CyberArk impacted our customers' compliance with the regulatory standards in a positive way. Now customers are very happy since they can ensure credentials are compliant. In terms of password management complexity, since they're managing everything through CyberArk, they're able to create complex passwords. The user doesn't really need to remember passwords since the session is entirely being launched through CyberArk. That means that they're able to have much more compliant account management within an organization. They're also able to run reports as well as activity and compliance reports in terms of data related to accounts. It is much easier when you have a tool that manages that. Before CyberArk, having reporting and visibility around usage of accounts was really tricky. In terms of compliance, it's able to cover that by giving just a whole overview of accounts within the organization.
CyberArk incorporates AI to improve Privileged Access Management. It's consistently improved as well. They do have a previous threat analysis analytics engine, which also can ingest logs from a SIEM solution if it's in place at the customer site. It's able to ingest this information and then give much more correlated security events. This module, the privileged analytics, is able to utilize behavior analytics and AI-related capabilities to be able to give security alerts to the teams. They can action alerts, or even automate to be able to have things blocked or terminated. For example, if someone changes their location. It has a geolocation that's able to then trigger maybe a password or QR code or email with a verification code to check it's that person. It utilizes AI capabilities or behavior analytics capabilities to have capabilities like that enforced.
It has the most plug-ins. Maybe thousands. So in terms of integration within different customer environments, it's much easier compared the competition. CyberArk a pioneer for PAM. They've always been the leader in terms of research and development and bringing new capabilities to the PAM. It will be able to cover 99.9% of most use cases.
What needs improvement?
In terms of improvement, since I am familiar with the product, there are no major issues.
However, customer feedback suggests that unless it's on-premises, complaints about resources are justified as it enhances security with multiple functionalities. The managed cloud deployment option by CyberArk is easier to manage. Resource issues could be mitigated by choosing this option.
I suggest adding more plugins and systems, which are often introduced later. Essentially, as long as capable personnel manage it, the solution works well.
They should continue refining it and adding more dashboards and reporting features. Improved user-friendliness, granularity, and functionality would enhance the product further.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for maybe four or five years. I would say it's closer to four years.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
At the moment, I work with CyberArk mostly. I haven’t interacted much with other solutions like Imperva, as other engineers have taken over those responsibilities.
What about the implementation team?
We are resellers, working ideally with partners, and I am certified with CyberArk. I am a certified delivery engineer for CyberArk PAM, and my experience is vast with the projects and teams I've been involved with.
What was our ROI?
When looking at Privileged Access Monitoring, many IT administrators have access to numerous privileged accounts, which increases the attack surface. CyberArk's PAM solution manages these credentials, providing value by reducing risks like data breaches or financial losses. The return on investment lies in improved security infrastructure, addressing over-privileged access, and reducing the risk of credential compromise, which is a major source of data breaches.
What other advice do I have?
We're a service provider and offer services to customers that acquire CyberArk. I come from a design perspective for those implementing CyberArk.
The company is open and shares information with partners. They inform us about new versions and allow enhancement requests through a portal. Many enhancements have come through this channel. If they keep going this way, everything will be good with CyberArk.
I'd recommend the solution to others.
Overall, I would rate the product nine out of ten. They've been the leader in PAM for maybe six years.