One Identity Safeguard Suite

Digital transformation is expanding organizations’ attack surfaces through technologies like the digital workplace, DevOps, containers, security automation, and IoT, increasing the urgency for security leaders to improve security posture without disrupting business operations. A central control in this environment is Privileged Access Management (PAM), which reduces the risk created by privileged accounts that often have broad, insufficiently monitored access, undermining least-privilege and accountability. Privileged users span both business roles (access to sensitive records like HR, payroll, financial data, and intellectual property) and IT roles (administrative access to infrastructure accounts), with an increasing number of non-traditional users—developers, project staff, and contractors—also requiring elevated access.

Traditional Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) tools are positioned as insufficient for privileged scenarios such as shared accounts, controlled privilege elevation, and monitoring of privileged activity. Modern PAM suites are described as evolving beyond credential vaulting and password rotation into advanced analytics, risk-based monitoring, and threat protection, with an emphasis on governance integration. Key drivers include shared credential abuse, unauthorized privilege elevation, credential hijacking, misuse on third-party systems, accidental errors, and requirements for attesting privileged users. Operational needs include privileged account discovery, lifecycle ownership tracking, single sign-on for admin efficiency, auditing/recording for compliance, and tighter oversight of vendors, MSPs, and cloud administration.

One Identity’s PAM portfolio centers on Safeguard, composed of Privileged Passwords, Privileged Sessions, and Privileged Analytics, complemented by Privileged Access Suite for Unix. Safeguard supports modular adoption, including transparent session monitoring with minimal network change, granular indexed recordings (keystrokes, mouse actions, viewed windows), OCR-based full-text search for forensics, and rapid session termination on suspicious behavior. Analytics establishes behavior baselines from real usage data to detect anomalies without predefined correlation rules and integrates with SIEM tools like Splunk. Strengths include robust session and password management, unified infrastructure (APIs, roles, reporting), integrations with Starling 2FA, One Identity Manager, and extensibility via SDK; challenges include mixed cloud/on-prem complexity, limited SaaS beyond Starling, and configuration burden for smaller organizations.

• Privileged business users require access to sensitive data such as HR records, payroll details, financial information, intellectual property, and social media accounts.
• Privileged IT users are typically administrators with access to system, software, or operational accounts that run infrastructure.
• Non-traditional privileged users can include employees on special projects, developers, and third-party contractors.
• One Identity is owned by Quest Software and is based in Aliso Viejo, California.
• One Identity Safeguard comprises Safeguard for Privileged Passwords, Safeguard for Privileged Sessions, and Safeguard for Privileged Analytics.
• Safeguard for Privileged Passwords and Safeguard for Privileged Sessions can be delivered as a virtual appliance or a hardened physical appliance.
• Safeguard for Privileged Analytics is delivered as part of the same image as Safeguard for Privileged Sessions.
• Safeguard for Privileged Sessions provides indexed recordings that include keystrokes, mouse clicks, and windows viewed.
• Audit trails from Safeguard for Privileged Sessions are encrypted and time-stamped and can be saved and viewed as video files.
• Safeguard integrates with SIEM tools including Splunk.

• “Controlling access to privilege accounts is a key area of securing the new IT landscape.”
• “If not managed, privilege accounts provide users with unrestricted and often unmonitored access across the organization’s IT assets.”
• “Privileged accounts pose a significant threat to the overall security posture of an organization because of their heightened level of access to sensitive data and critical operations.”
• “Existing Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) tools are purposely designed to deal with the management of standard users’ identity and access and do not offer the capabilities to manage privileged access scenarios…”
• “In recent years, PAM solutions have become more sophisticated making them robust security management tools in themselves.”
• “Because their Session Management solution can be set up using transparent mode, requiring minimal changes to the network…”
• “The detail of session capture is granular; individual keystrokes, mouse clicks and windows viewed are included in audit trails…”
• “Safeguard for Privileged Sessions can recognize suspicious patterns such as unusual command line requests or an out-of-the-ordinary window title.”
• “It uses actual usage data from the organization to define ‘normal’ behaviour and uses advanced algorithms to detect deviations from this baseline.”
• “A Workflow engine provides a degree of admin flexibility, which allows access to time-limited accounts, multiple approval requests, emergency access and policy updates.”