Privileged Access Management

The Buyer’s Compass for Privileged Access Management (PAM) is positioned as a structured starting point for selecting PAM vendors by aligning products and services to prioritized use cases, then scoring vendors against functional and non-functional criteria. The suggested workflow is to identify primary PAM use cases, weight evaluation criteria accordingly, gather vendor information, ask targeted questions, create a shortlist, and proceed to deeper RFIs and proofs of concept—while ensuring technical and organizational prerequisites are met.

PAM is framed as a critical cybersecurity control because privileged accounts (IT “superuser” accounts as well as privileged business users accessing sensitive assets like HR, payroll, financial data, or intellectual property) are high-value targets and an easy entry route for attackers. The privileged landscape is expanding beyond admins to developers, contractors, partners, and even customers, driven by cloud adoption, digital transformation, compliance pressures (including GDPR), and DevOps acceleration. The market is described as fast-growing and dynamic, with roughly 40 major vendors and projected revenue expansion from about $2.2bn annually to $5.4bn by 2025.

Core PAM capabilities now commonly include credential vaulting, password rotation, privilege elevation/delegation, and session monitoring/recording, while newer “standard” expectations are emerging around analytics, risk-based monitoring, and automated mitigation due to the speed of modern attacks. The document classifies PAM functions such as privileged account lifecycle governance, shared account controls, application-to-application secrets, endpoint privilege management, just-in-time provisioning, privileged SSO integration, and behavior analytics, plus advanced areas like DevOps-oriented PAM, task automation, remote privileged access, and privileged access governance. Delivery models span on-premises, cloud, PAM-as-a-service, and hybrid. Successful deployment depends on audits, platform choices, integration into broader security architecture, clear roadmaps, skilled staff, executive backing, incident response readiness, risk-based policies, and user security training.

• Privileged business users may require access to HR records, payroll details, financial information, intellectual property, and social media accounts.
• Non-traditional privileged users can include employees on special projects, developers, third-party contractual workers, and even customers.
• The PAM vendor landscape is estimated at around 40 major vendors.
• Combined annual PAM vendor revenue is estimated at around $2.2bn per year.
• Annual PAM vendor revenue is predicted to grow to $5.4bn by 2025.
• Credential vaulting, password rotation, controlled elevation/delegation, session establishment, and activity monitoring are described as almost standard PAM features.
• Shared privileged accounts are characterized as a serious security risk, especially when not monitored.
• An inability to account for usages of shared privileged accounts is stated as likely to fail relevant audits.
• Password rotation may be required as often as every week when passwords are stolen or compromised.
• PAM can be delivered on-premises (including hardened appliances), in the cloud, or as a service, and some organizations operate hybrid PAM architectures.

• “This document is not a complete guideline for selecting vendors but should provide an excellent starting point to streamline the decision-making process.”
• “Hackers and cyber criminals have long targeted unprotected privileged accounts as one of the easiest routes to get inside an organization.”
• “A successful attack can be conducted in minutes; therefore, a PAM solution must be capable of thwarting this without human intervention.”
• “The usage of privileged accounts must be governed as well as secured.”
• “Best practice demands that organizations switch to single identity privileged accounts, but shared privileged accounts still exist in many organizations and are a serious risk to security, especially if they are not monitored.”
• “AAPM is therefore being added as part of the SAPM function to allow applications to access credentials, making PAM suitable for the digital age by treating people, machines and applications as equal entities to be secured.”
• “Implementing JIT within PAM can ensure that identities only have the appropriate privileges when necessary, as quickly as possible and for the least time necessary.”
• “Large vendors are not necessarily the best ones, but size matters to some extent.”
• “Price is an important criterion. However, do not simply choose a cheaper option just because its is cheap.”
• “We sometimes see situations where organizations struggle not because of technical weaknesses or underperforming products, but because of a lack of organizational maturity.”