What is our primary use case?
CyberArk Secure Cloud Access is used primarily for secure administrator access to cloud consoles like the AWS console, Azure portal, and GCP console without sharing permanent credentials. It allows for better passwords and passwordless access, temporary admin privileges, and full audit tracking. Just-in-Time privileged access is utilized when a cloud engineer needs temporary production access for maintenance or troubleshooting; access is granted for only an approved duration, which is automatically revoked once the work is done. Additionally, it manages DevOps and Kubernetes access, provides third-party vendor access, and facilitates multi-cloud access governance for AWS, Azure, and GCP. It also caters to emergency situations such as break-glass access during critical production outages and assists in compliance and audit management, such as for SOC audits, while implementing Zero Trust security principles.
What is most valuable?
The best features of CyberArk Secure Cloud Access include Zero Standing Privileges, which eliminates the need for permanent admin access by providing users with temporary access only when required, ensuring it automatically expires after task completion. This significantly reduces insider threats and credential misuse. In scenarios such as patch deployment in Azure, CyberArk grants admin access for just two hours after approval, which is revoked automatically once the activity is completed. Furthermore, it supports passwordless access, multi-cloud environments, and includes session monitoring that records privileged sessions to assist during audits and investigations, providing better compliance visibility. Agentless browser access is another significant feature, as it eliminates the need for VPN dependency, making operations easier for DevOps and cloud teams.
Role-based access control (RBAC) improves cloud security by providing access based on job roles and responsibilities, which helps reduce unauthorized access. For example, I provide full infrastructure management rights to cloud admins while offering limited access based on role specifications for DevOps engineers and read-only access for auditors. RBAC includes implementing least privileged security, thus preventing accidental changes and limiting the attack surface, ensuring only authorized users can modify sensitive resources. This improves compliance auditing through traceable access control, monitoring, and documentation.
What needs improvement?
There are several areas where CyberArk Secure Cloud Access could improve, such as the integration with enterprise IT ecosystems, including cloud platforms, SIEM tools, ITSM solutions, MFA systems, and DevOps platforms. While it improves operational efficiency and provides seamless user experiences, configuring policies can be complex, requiring skilled engineers. More guided deployment wizards, better automated onboarding templates, improved UI/UX experiences, simplified policy management, and enhanced reporting and troubleshooting would be beneficial.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using CyberArk IdM and CyberArk Secure Cloud Access solutions for the last three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the product stability of CyberArk Secure Cloud Access around 9 to 10, noting its high scalability and reliability, especially in SaaS deployments. Although there can be upgrade complexities, the platform achieves strong uptime and stability amongst enterprise-level security.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Access control has improved by more than 20% with CyberArk Secure Cloud Access. With over 1,100 users utilizing this solution, I have eliminated the need for RDP access, ensuring that users can only access servers with the proper multi-factor authentication and manager approval, achieving complete coverage and reducing the risk of breaches.
How are customer service and support?
I rate the technical support for CyberArk Secure Cloud Access as a 10.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing for CyberArk Secure Cloud Access is quite high, especially the initial implementation cost, as it requires skilled engineers for deployment, configuration, and integration with various tools. The complex licensing structure involving user accounts, modules, features, and deployment types complicates cost estimation, making it seem expensive for smaller companies; however, it offers better value for larger enterprises. Additional service charges for architecture consulting and deployment support increase operational costs significantly.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
When comparing CyberArk Secure Cloud Access with other solutions such as BeyondTrust, Delinea, and ManageEngine, I focus on security capabilities, Zero Trust architecture, cloud-native features, integration ecosystem, and deployment complexity. I find that CyberArk ranks high in PAM maturity, particularly with its advanced features such as Zero Standing Privileges and Just-in-Time access that surpass those of competitors. CyberArk also demonstrates exceptional compliance and audit capabilities and excels in multi-cloud support.
What other advice do I have?
I use adaptive risk-based policies in CyberArk Secure Cloud Access, and while configuring these intelligent security policies, which dynamically adjust user access based on real-time risk analysis can be challenging, they significantly improve security. These policies evaluate user identity, device security, login location, time of access, user behavior risk score, and resource sensitivity to determine access permissions. For instance, if a cloud engineer typically logs in from the Hyderabad office during business hours but attempts to log in from an unmanaged device in another location, CyberArk blocks access and requests multi-factor authentication and manager approval before granting limited temporary access.
I assess the effectiveness of real-time monitoring in identifying threats in the environment by considering scenarios where an employee attempts to log in from a new location and needs manager approval. In such cases, multi-factor authentication is required, ensuring a second layer of security. This mechanism significantly reduces both insider and external threats in my usage of CyberArk Secure Cloud Access.
CyberArk Secure Cloud Access requires some maintenance, particularly for role-based access, future upgrades, patch management, and lifecycle management, which may involve minimal downtime. While skilled engineers and vendor support are needed during issues, it is generally designed to reduce operational overhead, benefiting from agentless access and cloud-native architecture, with regular maintenance tasks such as policy management and compliance auditing handled through the backend platform managed by CyberArk. I rate this solution a 9 overall.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other