Privileged Access Management tools are supposed to be the keepers of all the juicy secrets , the accounts with the kind of access that could make or break your entire environment. In theory, they’re the crown jewel of your layered defense strategy: storing credentials, rotating passwords, brokering privileged sessions, and making sure no one sneaks in uninvited.
Here’s the kicker though: what happens when someone actually breaks in? Or worse, when the risk doesn’t come from a malicious outsider, but from a well intentioned insider who just pressed the wrong button? (hypothetically speaking, of course.)
In this talk, we’ll discuss how core PAM components, service accounts, vaults, agents, connectors, automation engines, and federation links, can unintentionally open new paths for lateral movement, persistence, or a full blown outage.
You’ll see how attackers (and sometimes defenders) can weaponize legitimate PAM functionality, from rotation scripts gone rogue to connectors that trust a little too much.
By the end, you’ll learn how to spot the symptoms before your privilege management becomes a full blown outbreak, and how to keep your secrets from going viral.
