From the Field: PAW

๐Ÿ”Ž๐—™๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐—บ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—™๐—ถ๐—ฒ๐—น๐—ฑ: Real-World Findings from Security Assessments

๐Ÿ’ฅ ๐Ÿณ๐Ÿฒ% of infrastructures I analyzed had ๐—ป๐—ผ ๐—ฃ๐—ฟ๐—ถ๐˜ƒ๐—ถ๐—น๐—ฒ๐—ด๐—ฒ๐—ฑ ๐—”๐—ฐ๐—ฐ๐—ฒ๐˜€๐˜€ ๐—ช๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—ธ๐˜€๐˜๐—ฎ๐˜๐—ถ๐—ผ๐—ป๐˜€ (PAW) in place.

This is a huge gapโ€”and it ties directly to Tiering Models & Access Restrictions. If you donโ€™t control who accesses what, how can you properly secure privileged workstations?

๐—ช๐—ต๐˜† ๐—ฃ๐—”๐—ช๐˜€ ๐—บ๐—ฎ๐˜๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ฟ:

โœ… Stop Credential Harvesting โ†’ Protect admin credentials from being stolen.

โœ… Strengthen Access Control โ†’ Ensure admins use dedicated, hardened devices.

โœ… Boost Zero-Day Protection โ†’ A separate, secured device dramatically lowers exploit risk.

But hereโ€™s the truth ๐Ÿ‘‰ Implementing PAWs isnโ€™t easy.

Many try to replace them with PAM (Privileged Access Management) solutions, but PAM alone isnโ€™t enoughโ€”you still need secure access to PAM itself.

๐Ÿ’ก One alternative: use a dedicated physical device running multiple VMs.

โš  But ๐—ป๐—ฒ๐˜ƒ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ ๐—ต๐—ผ๐˜€๐˜ ๐—ฃ๐—”๐—ช ๐—ฉ๐— ๐˜€ ๐—ผ๐—ป ๐—ฎ ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—ด๐˜‚๐—น๐—ฎ๐—ฟ ๐˜„๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—ธ๐˜€๐˜๐—ฎ๐˜๐—ถ๐—ผ๐—ป you use for daily tasks!

๐Ÿ‘‰ Do you have PAWs in place in your environment?