PIM vs PAM vs IAM: What’s The Difference?

Identity management has become an essential aspect of cybersecurity as businesses struggle to protect their sensitive data from cyber threats. To shed some light on this topic, in this article, we’ll help demystify the key differences between PIM (Privileged Identity Management), PAM (Privileged Access Management), and IAM (Identity and Access Management), explain how these terms differ, and how and why you should integrate them into your environment. 

Defining PIM, PAM, and IAM

To begin with, below I will explain what PIM, PAM, and IAM mean and why they are crucial for your organization’s safety. All these concepts are built upon the concept of granting specific rights to user groups. In essence, certain users can have particular privileges and can be given access to data and systems in accordance with the policy they have been assigned. To configure a safe environment, in the first instance, you need to define the data, applications, and users that need privileged access and maintain permissions under strict control.

Defining PIM vs PAM vs IAM

Now, let’s dig a bit deeper and try to understand each of these access management concepts.

PIM

According to Oxford Computer Training, Privileged Identity Management can be defined as follows:

“Privileged Identity Management (PIM) is a capability within identity management focused on the special requirements of managing highly privileged access. PIM is an information security and governance tool to help companies meet compliance regulations and to prevent system and data breaches through the improper use of privileged accounts.”

PIM also alludes to the monitoring and protection of superuser accounts. A superuser is an account with privileges well above that of regular user accounts. This type of network identity is typically allocated to system or database administrators and is used for platform management functions. As superuser accounts have elevated privileges, the internal restrictions of a network can be bypassed by those with access. Consequently, users might intentionally or inadvertently leak sensitive records, alter transactions, and delete data. Thus, these accounts do need to be carefully managed and monitored, with PIM procedures and systems being set up to protect an enterprise’s networks from exploitation. Here are the main points you can follow to implement Privileged Identity Management in your organization:

• Identify and keep track of all superuser accounts.
• Define how superuser accounts will be managed and what their corresponding users can and can’t do.
• Set up procedures and deploy tools for superuser account management.

In short, Privileged Identity Management is the most efficient approach for the organization-wide management of superuser accounts. C-level company members and senior management may also have admin rights and access to classified information. To prevent any compromise, certain privileges and access require close supervision and appropriate controls. PIM guarantees a specific distribution of identity and rights for each user, ensuring that they can only access data under their privilege boundaries, and only perform certain actions.

PAM

What does PAM stand for – Privileged Account Management or Privileged Access Management? Well, this is the acronym used for both terms, but keep in mind these are not exactly synonyms. Privileged Account Management is part of Identity and Access Management (short for IAM, which I will explain a bit later), focused on safeguarding an organization’s privileged accounts. On the other hand, Privileged Access Management includes all security strategies and tools that enable organizations to manage elevated access and approvals for users, accounts, applications, and networks. In a nutshell, PAM lets companies limit their attack surface by granting a certain level of privileged access, thus helping them avoid and minimize the potential harm that may result from external or internal threats.

Privileged Access Management requires multiple tactics, with the key purpose of upholding the Principle of Least Privilege, described as restricting access rights and permissions to the bare minimum required for normal, daily operations of users, programs, systems, endpoints, and computational processes. The PAM field falls under IAM. Jointly, PAM and IAM enable organizations to gain absolute control and easily manage all user privileges. To better understand how to implement PAM in your company, I recommend you check out the following articles:

• What is Privileged Access Management (PAM)?
• Privileged Access Management (PAM) Best Practices
• 5 Essential Features to Look for in a PAM Solution
• PAM Security Essentials – Identity Management & Asset Protection

IAM

Identity and Access Management recognizes the need to enable adequate access to services and to satisfy stringent regulatory required standards. IAM is a vital endeavor in every organization, requiring technological competence and a high-level understanding and overview of the business. Here’s how Gartner defines Identity and Access Management:

“Identity and access management (IAM) is the discipline that enables the right individuals to access the right resources at the right times for the right reasons.”

Basically, a more granular control, monitoring, and auditing of privileged accounts and actions are offered by PAM, while IAM checks identities to confirm that a certain user has the right access at the right time.

When implementing Identity and Access Management, these are the steps that should be followed:

• Appoint identity as one of your main protections.
• Label access rights, find unnecessary privileges, accounts, and irrelevant user groups.
• Conduct a risk evaluation of corporate applications and networks to start building your IAM project on a solid foundation.
• Use multi-factor authentication and Single Sign-On (SSO).
• Have a strong password policy.
• Implement the Principle of Least Privilege and the Zero Trust Model.

PIM vs PAM vs IAM Explained

Next, let’s take a look at PIM vs PAM vs IAM. PIM, PAM, and IAM are acronyms that are sometimes used interchangeably. These concepts reflect numerous security aspects that function in tandem to safeguard an organization’s data and systems. Below you can see a comparison of these terms:

Each of these solutions has its own unique benefits that can be leveraged to help organizations better manage their identities.

1. PIM solutions help organizations to better control and manage user privileges. By granularly controlling which users have access to which resources, PIM solutions can help to prevent unauthorized access and reduce the risk of data breaches. Additionally, PIM solutions can help to improve organizational productivity by making it easier for authorized users to access the resources they need.
2. PAM solutions provide a more comprehensive approach to identity management than PIM solutions. In addition to providing granular control over user privileges, PAM solutions also offer features such as Single Sign-On (SSO) and two-factor authentication (2FA). These features make it even more difficult for unauthorized users to gain access to sensitive data and systems.
3. IAM solutions offer the most comprehensive approach to identity management available. In addition to offering all of the features of PIM and PAM solutions, IAM solutions also provide features such as identity lifecycle management (ILM) and identity federation.

How Can Heimdal® Help?

One of the main concerns within the PAM area that affects organizations refers to the struggle to fulfill all requests coming from users who would like to have their permissions elevated to be able to complete certain tasks. To end this hassle, Heimdal has come up with a cutting-edge PAM solution – Privileged Access Management – that helps organizations easily handle user rights, while enhancing their endpoint security. As it’s the only tool to auto-deny/de-escalate admin rights on infected machines (if you add the Application Control module into the mix), it substantially increases the cybersecurity in your organization.

System admins waste 30% of their time manually managing user rights or installations

Heimdal® Privileged Access Management

Is the automatic PAM solution that makes everything easier.

• Automate the elevation of admin rights on request;
• Approve or reject escalations with one click;
• Provide a full audit trail into user behavior;
• Automatically de-escalate on infection;

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Wrapping Up…

As the network perimeter lines are now blurring due to the increasing popularity of remote work, network security alone may not suffice. One of the potential risks for all companies are unmanaged accounts, which means that all users must always be recognizable and permanently monitored for adequate rights. Lack of access controls will increase threats and can lead to the abuse of highly sensitive data. For instance, an ex-employee may still have access to your confidential data, an attacker may compromise an account and misuse it, or insider threats could exist in your company. This is where, PIM, PAM, and IAM come into play, protecting your organization against various types of identity management dangers.

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This article was first published by Bianca Soare, in January 2021, and was updated by Mihaela Marian, in March 2023.