What is PAS?

Privileged Access Security (PAS) is a comprehensive solution designed to protect an organization’s most critical access rights and administrative credentials. It combines traditional Privileged Access Management (PAM), secure remote access, managed vendor access (VPAM), and comprehensive monitoring and auditing into a single platform. PAS is an umbrella concept that also encompasses third-party access management and AI agent management.

Why is PAS important?

Today, nearly all serious data breaches target identities in one way or another, particularly administrative credentials. If an attacker gains control of a Domain Admin, root, or other administrative account, they can effectively control the organization’s entire IT environment.

PAS significantly reduces this risk because:

• administrative credentials do not need to be known or shared with users
• passwords rotate automatically
• administrative privileges are valid only for the required duration
• all administrative actions can be traced to an individual person
• suspicious activity can be detected in real time.

What are the benefits to the organization?

1. Improved security

The attack surface is significantly reduced.

• fewer permanent administrator privileges
• lower risk of compromised credentials
• prevents lateral movement
• protects critical systems

2. Compliance

PAS facilitates compliance with requirements such as:

• NIS2
• ISO 27001
• GDPR
• KATAKRI
• NIST Cybersecurity Framework

The solution provides ready-made audit reports and evidence of who did what, when, and in which system.

3. Improved visibility

The security team can see from a single location

• who has administrative privileges
• which credentials are being used
• when they are being used
• where connections originate from
• what is being done in sessions.

4. Secure vendor management

In many organizations, external vendors use more administrative credentials than the internal IT team.

Imprivata PAS includes a dedicated VPAM feature for this purpose, which enables:

• approval of remote connections
• restriction of access to specific servers only
• recording of entire sessions
• prevention of unauthorized network movement
• elimination of VPN requirements in many use cases.

What are the benefits to administrators?

A good PAM solution is not just about security, but also about making work easier.

No more password memorization

Administrators do not need to know system passwords.

The solution retrieves them automatically from the vault.

Faster work

Administrators receive the required privileges quickly without separate manual processes.

Fewer errors

When credentials are retrieved automatically:

• passwords are not entered incorrectly
• they are not saved in browsers
• they do not need to be sent via email or Teams.

Clear accountability

Every administrative action can be linked to the correct person.

This also protects the administrator in potential investigation scenarios.

Secure remote administration

Administrators can access servers securely without permanent VPN connections or shared administrative credentials.

Specific strengths of Imprivata’s PAS solution

Imprivata differentiates itself from many PAM vendors particularly in the following areas:

• a single platform for internal administrators, external vendors, and AI agents
• secure remote access without traditional VPN dependency
• unified access rights management, session monitoring, and auditing
• well-suited for hybrid environments (on-premises + cloud)
• strong position particularly in healthcare and other high-security requirement sectors where usability is as important as security.