CyberArk Privileged Access Manager Reviews

I am a consultant. We are in the process of using this in our clients' companies.

The most valuable feature is Special Monitoring.

The authentication port is available in CyberArk Alero but not Fortinet products.

I have been working with CyberArk PAS for one year.

CyberArk is stable.

It's a scalable solution. 

I have limited experience with technical support, but our customers like the support.

In general, it appears to be fine.

I have also worked with Thycotic, until the completion of the project.

The initial setup is straightforward.

It is best suited for mid to large-size enterprises. It is not the best for smaller companies, largely because of the price.

I believe that this solution is priced well. It's the market leader and I think that it's the best solution.

The price is quite good for us.

For those who are interested in using this product, you have to know your requirements and compare them with CyberArk to see if it is suitable for them and fits their budget.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

I primarily use the solution to record any actions taken on specific important targets. It allows management to look at actions and play them back to see what was done within the environment.

The technical support is good.

It's pretty good at recording actions taken within an environment.

We found a lot of errors during the initial setup. They should work to improve the implementation experience and to remove errors from the process.

The solution could be more stable. 

 It should have more specific configurations. There are lots of types of servers and devices. The product should have a more detailed, specific configuration and integration with other products.

I've been using the solution for about three months at this point.

This was my first experience in the solution's UI and UX user experience and user interface. I didn't find the solution to be very stable at all.

We do plan to continue to use the solution, however, it's unclear as to if we will scale it further.

We're pretty satisfied with technical support. They are helpful. I find them knowledgable and responsive and I've been happy with the level of service we've been given thus far.

We found the initial setup quite difficult. There were a lot of errors and we found the process to be a bit complex. I wouldn't describe the implementation as straightforward.

In total, the deployment took about one week from beginning to end.

We did not handle the entire implementation ourselves. We had assistance from an outside firm. They were helpful.

We're just users of the solution. We're customers. We aren't resellers or consultants. We don't have a business relationship with the solution.

I'm using the latest version of the solution.

I'd recommend the product to others.

Overall, we've been mostly happy with the solution. I'd rate it at an eight out of ten so far.

We use it for storing and rotating passwords.

Within our organization, a lot of people are using this solution for a lot of projects. We have already implemented CyberArk as a SaaS solution. We are not using the core parts, but we are using the software as a service for a project.

At my previous job, there was a team of seven people who were in charge of maintenance. Mostly analysts, senior analysts, and a technical lead used this solution. 

It completely depends on the requirement. For some of the RPA robotic types of user identity, we prefer for it to happen in an automatic way, but some of them are highly critical, so we don't do it automatically. As for the end-user experience or expectation, if they want to change it at their end, they can do it.

I don't see any problems because it's highly secure and very flexible. It gives us all types of storage options and it gives us a high level of security. From my experience, overall, I don't see many problems that need to be rectified.

The only problem involves granting access to people who are authorized to view it. This user management area is the most critical. We have to constantly check on that area and we have to review and give proper access. Nobody should have more access than they are authorized for.

I have been using CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault for eight years.

It's scalable at the component level. If you want to add some of the latest components, or if you want to implement biometrics or MFA, this solution can handle that — it's very easy to implement.

The tech support is amazing. If you have any issues that you need help with, the CyberArk support team reaches out very quickly, depending on the criticality of the issue. If it's critical, they will reach out to you within hours.

The vendor support is really good.

The initial setup is quite straightforward. These days they have an automatic script — It is much less time-consuming.

We used to do it manually which would take almost two to three hours in total.

We did it in-house. I'm certified in CyberArk; I've also installed it for clients as well.

The licensing plan is either six months or one year — it's not on a monthly basis.

Every company will have a different license fee, but ultimately, it comes down to how many users you want to manage and how many companies you want to support. If you want three CPMs, then you'll need licensing for three. It's per-company, license-based.

I am currently evaluating other solutions. A few of them do not support PTA. Some of them don't have DevOps properly managed. Others don't give you the DNE facility, which is free of charge with CyberArk.

I would definitely recommend CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of eight.

There are threats that get opened because of the vulnerability of privileged access that says to directly put it in a vault.

Every aspect of the solution is very well integrated, and that gives comfort. It is a fail-safe kind of environment. I think that's the fail-safe feature makes customers comfortable because there are no non-integrable stuff or cures. For example, a vault would have its own anti-virus,  its own application, its own operating system to stay hardened. It is absolutely hardened for it to be protected from the outside world.

Having a cloud version would be very helpful. You have to invest a lot of money for the infrastructure hardware so the cloud version would help.

My organization has been using this solution for a few years but I joined the company three months back.

It is very stable.

Our clients are large enterprises. It is easy to scale.

Our customers contact us for any technical support, but we are able to sort out customer issues to a very large extent. We only had to connect with CyberArk at L-3 level or L-4 level. We are able to address most of our customer's issues. 

I would rate their support a nine out of ten. 

We have had customers use a competitive product that CyberArk has replaced but it is not very common. It is not very easy to change your Privileged Access Management framework so easily.

CyberArk is fail-safe, it has a threat intelligence filter, and prevention threat attacks. That sets the product apart from others, and I think the other part is their ability to onboard a maximum number of resources like storage network, security, IoT devices, and RPAs. Its ability to pervasively onboard almost all critical privileges and resources across the organization is where it stands out in a really big way.

I didn't implement it. I don't believe we've had any problems implementing it. I've never heard any issues. I'd say it's neutral.

There are costs in addition to the standard licensing. There is an implementation fee. Those are additional fees and the customer has the annual maintenance, the software, and whole maintenance cost added to that. So there are additional costs besides this standard license.

The most important phase is the discovery phase. Pay the most attention to that. Spend the most amount of time on the discovery phase, which is really the startup planning. The project becomes smoother. Book stricter guidelines on timelines and let there be a senior sponsor part of the project so that you are able to get milestones addressed quickly otherwise, these projects tend to drag longer.

In the next release, I would like to have the cloud option and all of the features that come with it. 

I would rate CyberArk a nine out of ten. 

Our primary use of this solution is as a password manager.

The interface is very simple to use.

Security-wise, CyberyberArk is better than the other products.

The pricing is too expensive and should be reduced. This is our only concern. When a small industry wants to invest in these kinds of tools, they don't have the budget to spend a lot of money on security. If the price were more reasonable then many other small businesses would consider using it.

The installation process should be easier and more user-friendly so that you don't need to hire a third party to deploy it. Instead, an in-house administrator could do it.

I have been using this product for the last two years.

Over the past two years, I hardly remember us facing any large problems. We have experienced small bugs, but they release patches to fix those.

This is a scalable product. In our company, we have about 100 users, most of which are part of our DevOps team or are administrators.

We are satisfied with the technical support.

Prior to CyberArk, we were using a Microsoft product, but it didn't fulfill our entire requirement. We adopted this new solution because it met all of our needs.

The initial setup is complex. It took two or three days to complete the deployment.

We implemented this solution with the help of consultants who had experience with it.

This product is very expensive.

I have seen demonstrations of similar products by other vendors and what I found was that the security on this solution is better.

Overall, I feel that this is a good product and I recommend it. The only thing that people have to consider is pricing.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

This solution is used primarily for privileged segment access and break-glass access. We also use it for log-on session recording and access control, where we can grant access to our key systems for ad-hoc use.

The most valuable feature is the ability to delegate access to admins when they need it. It allows us to have some kind of proof on the approval process, rather than give people standing access on a full-time basis.

I would prefer that this is a fully-managed service, rather than have to manage the software ourselves and keep it up to date. A cloud-based deployment would ultimately be better for us than an on-premises appliance.

Stability has not been a problem.

We didn't have any issues with scalability, although we only have 30 or 40 systems integrated. There were not tens of thousands.

We did not need to contact technical support.

The initial setup was not very hard, although it took a little while to get it set up. The only difficult part is making sure that it is integrated with all of the applications. If you've got Active Directory then it is easy, and pretty straightforward. If instead, you have all local accounts then it can get a lot harder, although I don't think that any other application can improve it if you've got local accounts everywhere.

The actual installation that included getting it up and running was pretty quick, taking only a couple of days. Going through all of the change management and other processes took much longer, on the order of months. The more problems there are with accounts inside the organization, the longer the deployment will take.

Our in-house team was responsible for the deployment.

The price of this solution is expensive.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this product is to get the admins familiar with the setup. They have to learn how to get the process approved, especially in an ad-hoc scenario. The scheduled changes are ok, but the ad-hoc ones can be a little bit problematic if you don't have enough approvals ready to approve access.

If an organization can afford it then the Cyberark Enterprise Password Vault works well.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Managing passwords to infrastructure and applications, keeping those accounts “safe,” and being able to audit their use.

The audit capabilities include video so that not only keystrokes but also mouse clicks are captured. This provides safety and reassurance for anyone working in our infrastructure. 

Reducing the number of “admin” accounts by utilizing accounts that can be used by individuals with the same role, but only one at a time. When the accounts have been used, its password is changed (to something a user would have had to write down) before being made available for reuse. The passwords which are hidden from the users are not known, and thus can be long and complex, while only being used for a session before being changed.

Privileged Threat Analytics (PTA) that can function in more that one AD domain at a time. The recent enhancement that allows resilience in PTA is great, but operation in more than one domain is required as many organizations have multiple AD domains. Even if it’s just prod and test or PPE split, you still want to know what’s going on in it.

Three to five years.

No Previous PAM solution used.

Yes, based on Gartner

From an industry perspective, you continue to see the headlines in the media about how bad actors have been able to take advantage of weak policies and security controls around access management within companies.  In these cases, the focus has been around employees that can access the most sensitive information, or have access to the very controls that operate and protect the firm.  Products like CyberArk, that provide controls for privileged access, have helped mitigate the threat of taking over those accounts that have the greatest amount of risk to an organization, particularly for those who are system administrators and have the highest powers in being able to access all levels of the technology infrastructure.

When it comes to the product's ability to standardize security and reduce risk across the entire enterprise, standardization is all about simplifying the complexity of IT threats and risks and it's all about the standardization of the controls that you have in place. If you have a product set that enables you to provide security, and it is consistently applied across a specific user base, then you have standardization which drives both enhanced security through the privileged access controls, and efficiency through the standardization of your operating model.

Availability is an interesting challenge, but it is part of an IT Risk Strategy.  When it comes to Cybersecurity, Privileged Access control is the ability to manage IT risk associated with the most powerful access to your infrastructure services.  This IT Risk can manifest itself as compromised information, manipulated data, or disruption of your IT based services. A Privileged Access Security product reduces the threat of stolen credentials and account takeovers of those profiles that would have the power to take down your enterprise.   Therefore, it not only reduces the risk to your firm, but also drastically improves availability. 

The most valuable features are its simplicity and the ease of implementation. When you think about privileged access management and the complexity of solving privileged access for those system administrators in your organization, CyberArk is a product that helps you simplify that problem and implement a standard set of security controls to protect the enterprise.  

In terms of the products ability to manage Privileged Access control requirements at scale; scale is really a function of two influences, which would either be the size of your infrastructure, or the complexity of your organizations operating model for those that have privileged access to your infrastructure services.  CyberArk scales quite readily across a large organization and through proper design and engineering is capable of expanding across a variety of use cases.  Like any technology control implementation however, it is always important to ensure you review and optimize the organizations support operating model, in order to ensure that you have the most optimal design and implementation of CyberArk.  

CyberArk has captured the individual privileged access space well. They've captured the application-to-application and DEVOPS space quite well.. They should continue to invest in optimizing the services, and help companies drive down risk associated with application based passwords, as this is an industry that is being closely watched by external regulators. 

CyberArk continues to stay close to the industry and are always looking for ways to improve  their products and service offerings accordingly.  There are 3 areas that I would call out, that CyberArk should continue to focus on:

1) Continue to help organizations understand how they align their strategies and roadmaps to industry trends and the overall cybersecurity threat landscape. 

2) Continue to help the industry innovate on talent , and position customers to be more successful in supporting their CyberArk implementations. 

3) Continue to help customers understand the Risk reduction capabilities and scorecards associated with their deployments.  Initiatives like the CyberArk Blueprint will help enable enable informed customers. 

The perceived stability of CyberArk is quite dependent on the complexity of the environment it is implemented in, and the overall design of the infrastructure, including both PSM and Vault technologies.  As an infrastructure it is quite stable; however, in complex network infrastructure environments, sporadic network disruptions could create issues accessing the various CyberArk network devices.

Scalability is a function of both technology growth, and integration capability.  CyberArk has not only continued to advance the infrastructure robustness of their software solutions, but through the C3 alliance they have also created integration opportunities with other IT Security and Access Mgmt products that allow companies to provide a full ecosystem of IT controls within their organizations.    This also provides an opportunity for companies to consider best of breed products, like CyberArk, and not have to restrict their decisions to a small set of technology tools that do not provide comprehensive Privileged Access Services.

CyberArk is a growing company and their technical support has continued to grow and mature across the organization. The one thing I'll say that CyberArk has been able to do is to continue to keep in touch with its customers and look into areas where there's opportunity to continue improving their technical support across the organization. CyberArk works with an integrated model: They have integrators within firms that will implement the product. But at some point, you always need to refer back to the software owners of the product to make sure that you're comfortable that what you've designed and implemented is in keeping with what their blueprint would have recommended in the first place. In addition, their technical support has continued to mature and grow to help customers become successful in their deployments.

What is complex is privileged access management. When companies look at implementing a software solution for privileged access management, if they actually haven't looked at the complexities of privileged access within their own organization — and I'm speaking more in terms of the business processes for that type of access across the organization — then any software tool is going to look complex because it's not going to solve the problem.

If a firm focuses on understanding their existing Privileged Access operating model, the inherent business processes, and the risk & pervasiveness of Privileged Access across their enterprise, then they will be better positioned to understand the business problem they need to solve.  CyberArk will then become a capability that enables them to solve their IT Risk issues with privileged access, and capitalize on the efficiencies with their new operating model.  The complexity seldom ever lies in the technology. It always lies in how well it integrates with the business processes that the firm is trying to solve as part of its deployment.

Privileged Access Management is a business transformation program.  It forces business to look at their overall operating model for system administrative and application based access, and develop a strategy that reduces risk overall to the enterprise. Once this strategy is completed, and a new operating model is conceived, CyberArk software and services becomes a very effective series of controls that enable the business to secure the most sensitive access to services, and allows the organization to operate within their risk tolerance. 

Far too often companies will treat the CyberArk product set as a software implementation, that becomes overly complex and evolves into a multi-year program. This is due in part to the legacies of technology programs, where the implementation will force business to rethink their operating model, and therefore delays, scope changes and cost of overall program becomes associated with the software implementation initiative. This is a consequence of positioning a Privileged Access program as a security software implementation, and not a true business transformation initiative. 

While CyberArk continues to adjust its licensing costs and continues to look at the comparisons in the industry and the ability to effectively and affordably help companies and firms solve their privileged access problems, companies also have to look at the overall cost of what a privileged access program means to their firm, and what shareholder value they gain as a result of implementing those types of products or services or business processes. In that context, they should start to look at what the comparison is against the software that they're using to enable those very controls they're trying to implement.

I've spent some time with BeyondTrust. I've spent some time with Centrify. I've had their products in for different instances and different purposes. They play an interesting concentric role in some of the areas that they focus on, but I wouldn't say I have one-to-one experience in other product sets.

CyberArk continues to innovate, as they refine strategies based on industry research and trends in the cyber security landscape, and incorporate the necessary updates to both their roadmaps as well as their product sets. The creation of the customer implementation roadmap, acquisition of Conjur for DEVOPS and the development of  Alero to address 3rd party secured access, are examples of product innovation to address  emerging risks within the  industry.  

I would rate CyberArk 8 our of 10;  although I do remain impressed with their existing set of product offerings, their cyber security roadmap & strategy, and their overall corporate philosophy, I do feel it is necessary for them to ensure they remain vigilant and maintain pace with an evolving cyber industry.  Significant disruption in the technology industry brought on by advancements in Machine Learning / AI, commoditization of cyber attack tools, and rapid deployment of IoT based technologies, summon the need to ensure companies do not become complacent in the agility of their security tools.

I have several passions. One of the passions I've always had is in organizational transformation and leadership. A second is really around the space for identity and access management. CyberArk has allowed me to continue, even after I've retired from the industry after 35 years, to still live that passion through their customers. I've been given the opportunity to provide some keynotes around organizational transformation. It's an exciting industry to be in and CyberArk has allowed me the benefit of still continuing to enjoy that experience.