CyberArk Privileged Access Manager Reviews

• Ability to manage passwords for highly privileged, service accounts, which are not tied to a person
• The inclusion of a full audit trail
• Approval workflow functionality

Management of these accounts is typically required to prevent abuse and prove compliance.

Perhaps improve the user registry integration. User registry integration is atypical in the sense that the product creates a copy of the user inside the product itself. This is done to accommodate for license seat counting.

Depending upon the size of the user base and license model, it may not allow new users to log in to the platform. I doubt that the vendor considers this an issue.

I have used CyberArk for three years, including the implementation of the product.

I did not have stability issues.

I did not have scalability issues.

The product is not very difficult to install. However, there are some considerations that need to be taken into account. Technical support is very well aware of this.

The setup was simple. It is Windows based and leverages installation wizards to perform the installation. Also, sufficient documentation exists to guide you through the setup procedure.

Examine the user base and frequency of use. A lot of licensing models exist. However, having this clear will immediately indicate what fits best. As for pricing, I cannot comment.

We didn’t look at alternatives.

Assure that the organization is ready and willing to adopt this. The typical business cases cannot be addressed by the product alone.

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. 

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

The primary use case is for storing user passwords and administration credentials.

I am the engineer for a company that sells this solution mostly to financial institutions. 

It is also useful for auditing and securing shared accounts or co-shared accounts.

The most valuable feature is the special management. It records the activity and the actions that we use for auditing.

The deployment architecture, the ability to locate and change credentials and the stability need to be improved. They need to install or include an appliance-based option, which CyberArk does not have.

The technical support can improve on the time that it takes to get a callback.

The integration is great but needs to be a bit more user-friendly.

Also, a feature with the ability to create password sync.

In the next release, I would like to see the following:

• Availability on the cloud and the appliance.
• More documentation for the setup. 
• Simplify the deployment.
• Continuous operation with this solution.
• Simplify the infrastructure for better stability.
• Increase the support for applications.
• Invest in local on the ground staff in various regions.
• The ability to search by the activities, especially for Windows Servers.
• Improve the auditing capabilities for their searches.

The stability depends on the infrastructure it is installed on, which is important because CyberArk does not have the hardware appliance.

This solution is scalable. It scales very well, there are no issues.

The technical support is good, there are no issues.

They know what to do when you call them, they are competent.

Sometimes they can take too long before getting back to you, which is something that can be improved.

Previously I was using Centrify and One Identity. We switched because CyberArk has a lot of strength in my region. Some partners do not want to deploy CyberArk to their customers because they feel it will create competition when it comes to renewal. They don't want the price to be affected.

The initial setup is complex. The architecture needs improvement in the documentation for the setup and the manageability.

If you have everything provided for you, it can take three to four hours to deploy this solution.

I think that it might be cheaper than the other competitors in our region.

I have learned that the deployment can be tricky. Always plan your deployment in phases.

Don't unload all of your privilege credentials at once, otherwise, you have an issue with the passwords. 

Always, have help available on standby when you are deploying this solution to prevent issues.

This solution is quite efficient. You don't always have to have your applications. If you are encrypting the server, you don't need the applications. You are required to do it on your workstation. The server will deliver that to you from the managing pack when you try to implement the sessions.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The fact that there are more and more plugins developed make it easier for implementation.

It is difficult to say what the valuable features are. I use all the different parts together to get the full power of CyberArk.

I would like to see better usability for non-technical people. If you use the PVWA interface, I noticed that the end user would need some extra training. The portal doesn't navigate so easily, if you don't know it.

With Facebook, for example, people find their way around easily. In PVWA, it takes some time to know how it works from an end-user point of view.

I did not encounter any issues with stability.

There have been no issues with scalability. You can easily manage more than 4000 accounts with one PSM.

I haven't needed any support yet, as it is well documented.

We did not use a previous solution. Basically, we helped a telecom to migrate from a standard .XLS with accounts to CyberArk.

The most difficult part was convincing the technical teams to use it.

Pricing and licensing depend on the environment. First, make a good plan.

Basically, build it up step-by-step, starting with the EPV of course :-).

• EPV: Enterprise Password Vault
• PSM: Privileged Session Manager
• AIM: Application Identity Manager
• The latest version of the product is mature and there is more functionality than we need.

• Improved security
• Reduced the overhead to protect enterprise data from delays
• Receives logs about all activities
• Compliance with several standards

I’m not the end-user. As a solutions architect (consultant), I designed and planned the solution in a very complex network environment.

We have not encountered any stability issues. After more than six years with my first CyberArk client, everything works great.

We have not encountered any scalability issues. The solution was scaled right at the beginning of the project.

We called technical support a few times and they came back to us very quickly. They fixed our problems very quickly. The problems were caused mainly by changes in the network.

We did not use any previous solution.

We were assisted for the initial setup by a CyberArk consultant for one week.

A good architecture will help to gather the business requirements. You can then come up with the right sizing and licenses. If it is a large installation, implement in phases to become familiar with the products, and then purchase the licenses at the right time.

All other top solutions in the Gartner Magic Quadrant were evaluated and CyberArk came up as the best and most mature choice. I compared all solutions using my client business requirements and what the solutions offered to them on the top of the business requirements. The scope of the project became wider.

I would recommend being well prepared. Do not improvise. Understand what you are doing. Take the time to read the technical documentation, and not just the marketing material, to understand CyberArk. It will not be a waste of time.

Take the time to prepare, clean, and document all your privileged, services, and application accounts. Use the product for its intended design.

The primary use case of CyberArk is controlling privileged access. It is good at providing various privileged access controls. The CyberArk use case can be implemented on various platforms.

Password rotation is another key use case. There are many integrations available on the CyberArk Marketplace, plugins and connectors with different technologies to be integrated with CyberArk to achieve this use case.

I've had an experience of deploying CyberArk in on-premise and in the cloud.

For any use case, session management is a key because it isolates users' machines to the target system. That way then, if an attack happens on a user's machine, the privileged session is still an isolated session. The privileged session is not interrupted.

In general, all CyberArk's features are very useful from a privileged account control point of view, and for session management and password rotation. 

The biggest feature is the security of the overall solution. It's very secure. The vaulting technology and the number of security layers involved in the vault, where privileged accounts are actually stored, is the heart of the solution.

There are many other important features of CyberArk: 

• Privileged Session Manager (PSM) connects you to the target platform. 
• Password management (CPM) provides automatic password rotations, including password verification and reconciliation. 
• Auditability, which means CyberArk keeps track of logs and audit trails, including session recording, which is another key feature. 

The password management enables the rotation of passwords per an organization's policy. Passwords can be rotated after N number of hours or based on a particular day. It's a very key feature from a security point of view, because passwords are meant to be rotated very frequently. CyberArk does it very well with different plugins.

More than the product itself, there is room for improvement in the documentation. The documentation should be very detailed and very structured. It has a lot of good information, on one level, but I feel that it could be more elaborate and more structured. That would make it easier when somebody is implementing it or referencing the documentation.

I have used CyberArk Privileged Access Manager for approximately seven years.

It is a very stable and reliable product.

It is scalable and scaling it is straightforward. It has been designed and planned well, making it easy to scale the environment.

We have frequently worked with CyberArk technical support. In the last year their support has been changed. I would rate it at about seven out of 10. It depends on the person who picks up the support ticket. If that person is fairly proficient in his experience, the response will be quick. Otherwise, it can take time. But, in general, it's good.

Neutral

The complexity of the initial setup depends on the organization's underlying infrastructure, on the environment in which the development is happening. Sometimes the environment on which the product is being installed is more of a challenge than the product. That plays a key role. And, as I mentioned, it's a bit of a challenge because of the documentation at the moment. It needs to be much more user-friendly

The time for deployment also depends on the environment in which the product is being deployed. The technology landscape is very complex. With an end-to-end implementation, it can vary depending on whether the environment is small or medium or complex, and what types of use cases are involved. If it is just a simple environment and minimal features need to be configured, it can be straightforward and take a few days. But if it's a really large-scale, complex environment, where multiple integrations are required, because the underlying requirement to deploy CyberArk with other applications is complex, it will definitely take longer.

Generally, I don't get involved in the licensing or the purchasing side of it, but I do know that the licenses are expensive.

It's a long journey and it needs to be set out in phases very well, starting with something small and gradually implementing PAM controls across whatever multiple technologies an organization uses. It's a long-term project to fully deploy and benefit from all of CyberArk's features. 

Rather than being about the product, it's more about the overall PAM journey that a company decides to take. It's a very complex world, integrating multiple applications within CyberArk. There are various technical complexities involved, not with CyberArk, but with the other products. 

But it's worthwhile. CyberArk does its job very well. All the components are very useful and the benefits are all evident. CyberArk is the number-one PAM solution.

My primary use case is the digital identity for access management of users and the configuration of passwords, or MSA, or SSO.

Password Vault's policy configuration is very good - when you receive an attack, you can segment the structure of the project in order to isolate parts or users.

Upgrading the product is very difficult, so this could be an area for improvement.

I've been using this solution for six months.

There have been a few lags when connecting with RDP, but otherwise, the stability is good.

Password Vault's scalability is good.

The technical support is very good in general but could provide more help when upgrading.

I would rate this solution eight out of ten.