CyberArk Privileged Access Manager Reviews

I use the solution for administration. If the customer requires Alero or HTML, we will deploy the solution in that particular environment. Otherwise, if the end users are accessing the solution via VPN or from inside the network, we will not deploy Alero or HTML. We will instead focus on CyberArk's core PAM, which includes the vault password rotation component, the web interface component, the jump server, and PPA. These are CyberArk's four main components which we deploy for every customer.

CyberArk has a lot of modules, such as Enterprise Password Vault, which is the heart of the solution and needs to be up and running at any time. Privileged accounts and session recordings get stored inside the vault itself.

Likewise, we can configure high availability for the vault, like an active/passive or an active/active configuration. Replication disaster recovery is also supported.

CyberArk is also capable of rotating the credentials for a lot of endpoints. It has the CPM plugins by default for password management, Windows and Linux, as well as databases like Oracle and MS SQL, and can also rotate to some network devices like Cisco 9000.

We have Privileged Access Management, a general server between the user's and the target's machine. All of the sessions go from that server to the target endpoints. Once the end user disconnects the session, the session recordings and live monitoring will be uploaded to the vault. That recording will be stored for 180 days for auditing.

Another component is Privileged Threat Analytics. It detects any threats on target machines. For example, an end user might connect to a Linux endpoint and try to run privileged commands. Those commands are customizable and can be defined in the PTA as well. Whenever those users run those particular commands on the target, the PTA will report suspicious activity and report to security admins in the organization via mail or even on the web portal. We have a separate tab for security.

Within security events, these particular suspicious activities will be detected as threats and attain a risk score, "This is the user who connected to this particular target and ran these particular commands or applications."

CyberArk has a remote access solution called CyberArk Remote Access Alero. CyberArk also supports HTML gateways so that users can connect from outside the network without a VPN connection.

The solution has many advantages, such as the user interfaces and remote app features when using local applications when sessions are getting established over RDP, SSH, database, and web browsers. It is easy for administration as well.

Password management for all the endpoints needs improvement.

CyberArk can handle password management for Windows, Linux, databases, and network devices. However, there are solutions like Tenable or Skybox, Palo Alto, and other security devices for which we cannot provide password rotations on CyberArk. CyberArk should look into development for those particular plugins. I heard they had developed them, but they are not widely available. So if, for example, a customer requires CPM's password management plugin for Tenable, they need to send a request to CyberArk themselves so that the CyberArk team will then sell it to the customer. It does not come with an implementation license. It's a separate thing that a customer needs to purchase. CyberArk will assign it to that particular customer ID, and that plugin will not be supported for other customers. But those are their business tactics. They will not reveal all their plugins, only the basic ones.

I have worked with CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault for four years on a regular basis.

I rate the solution's stability an eight out of ten.

I rate the solution's scalability an eight out of ten.

The technical support is very poor. We handle implementation for our clients, so we do not handle support after. We do the knowledge transfer and if they face some challenges, we will show them how to troubleshoot as well as the documentation. We provide everything to the customer as they are not experts in CyberArk.

If the customer faces any issue, they will raise a case with CyberArk in the technical portal. But once they raise a case, CyberArk will not respond.

Let us say I opened a case this morning. Initially, they will respond, "I am the technical expert handling this particular case. Please provide me the logs." Their first reply will be that they want the logs. The customer will then gather the logs somehow and attach those logs to the case.

However, it will take two days for technical support to investigate their logs and reply. Even after two days, they will reply, and will say, "I am transferring this case to the higher level expert" that is, L2 or L3, "they will get back to you." 

The initial reply will be given by the L1 engineer who doesn't know the product or how to troubleshoot that situation, so every case will go to the L2 level or L3. The time taken in the process is too heavy. So even if I open the case as a "severe" case, even if it is not severe, they will reply to say that this particular case is not severe, so I have to keep it as "medium" or "low." As a result, customers consider hiring support from my company.

With CyberArk, we have the direct installer file and setup files for each component, such as Password Vault Web Access, CPM, PSM, and PTA. The implementation engineer should install every component. We also need to have servers for each component. We need to request a set of servers per the architecture and the components count. Once we get those servers, Windows or Linux servers, we need to copy the setup files onto them. We need to deploy the setup files by installing and taking some steps. It contains manual and automatic installation, with CyberArk providing some PowerShell scripts themselves. With those scripts, we can do the installation automatically. 

By comparison, with BeyondTrust, whatever the module is, the virtual appliance is built by the BeyondTrust team itself with all the configurations. We just need to deploy it in our organization network and do the initial networking configuration, and later, we can directly do the integrations.

Also, CyberArk recommends we do hardening for each component for security purposes. After hardening, unwanted firewalls and services will be disabled on the operating systems, which makes the product more secure.

Though there are some efforts required from the implementation engineer, the installation is straightforward. I rate the initial setup a seven out of ten.

Users will clearly understand the solution once they go through the architecture diagram.

To connect to the target systems and view the accounts, view the session recordings, and check if the system health of all the components is working well. Any admin-related task will be done in the web portal, Password Vault Web Access, a separate component in CyberArk.

CyberArk is one of the better solutions which users will want to implement in their organization for securing their privileged accounts and access, and session monitoring for auditing. If they can deploy CyberArk, it's a good product.

We have the identity provider for all the authentication processes. However, sometimes, we need access to different applications for customers or clients that are not integrated into the identity provider. For these, we need to store a password to gain access. For example, we use the CyberArk Password Vault for third-party services. This vault needs to be shared with many people in our company. 

This allows us to store passwords and create privileged access for some users without them needing to know the password. The system inputs the password into the endpoint URLs they use for authentication, but the users never see the password. This is crucial because people may leave the company, posing a high risk. If we had integrated it into the identity provider, we would have policies for active directory users but not for users outside the company.

For example, our development teams need to connect to databases, systems, and cloud services during development. The developers don’t get access to third-party services. We use the solution to manage this access. The application being developed and deployed integrates with CyberArk Password Vault services.

The main challenge was integrating with in-house IT and business applications, which are not standard. We needed to create special updates for that kind of integration.

I have been working with the product for three to four years. 

The solution is 99 percent scalable. 

Sometimes, support is not easy because you need to share the company's architecture. Maybe they are on time, but they don't understand the specifics we're talking about. Communication can be an issue, especially when speaking with people whose first language isn't English. There can be difficulties with understanding and making sense of conversations. So, outsourcing support can sometimes be challenging.

Neutral

CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault's deployment is complex. 

I have been working with the new services and don't see any additional issues at this hour. The key requirement is to have people who understand not only the tool but also the concepts and how to view it from an architectural perspective. 

One problem is that people may not know how to work with the tool, and another is that they don't understand the concepts. So, I think focusing on proof of concepts is good. For example, what I do at first is request information for identity providers and key management services.

I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten. 

In my organization, we are using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager to enhance the security of an organization's critical systems, mainly by securing privileged accounts (e.g. administrator passwords, SSH keys, and API tokens). 

We are also using Cyber-Ark for access control by ensuring that only authorized personnel can access privileged accounts and sensitive systems. 

very important for us is also Session Recording and Monitoring. We can record and monitor privileged user sessions in real time for auditing purposes. 

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager significantly improved our organization's security. Mainly, it has enhanced our ability to secure privileged accounts. Centralized management of identities ensures that credentials are stored securely. Also, the automated rotation of passwords reduces the risk of leaks.

The session recording feature adds great value and helps with auditing administrative activities.

CyberArk PAM can be easily automated, which saves a lot of time and administrative effort.

For our organization, the most valuable features of CyberArk PAM are:

• Credential Management. The automation of the retrieval and injection of credentials into sessions, and automation of password rotation.
• Session Recording. It gives us the possibility to record privileged user sessions for auditing and compliance purposes. 
• Ease of integration. CyberArk can by integrated with multiple systems and applications.
• The possibility of using Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) which increases security
• Reporting module. This allows us to generate reports based on session activity

Cost management. There should be more models and licensing plans for this software. They should also be flexible, allowing you to purchase selected features at a favorable price.

User Experience. The current interface is OK, however, sometimes it is not very intuitive. There is also no possibility of advanced modification and adaptation to your own needs and requirements.

Performance. The performance of the application could be a bit better, especially in the case of remote sessions - delays in remote sessions can be annoying.

I've used the solution for about five years. 

We use the solution for cybersecurity and regulation.

The tool has safe vaults. We keep our passwords in the Vault. The tool’s recording feature is also valuable for us.

The tool needs to improve its usage and interface. They need to have a modern and useful interface. I want the product to improve its integration capabilities as well since some of the integration features do not work always.

I have been using the solution for five years.

The solution is a stable product.

The product is scalable. You can manage 100,000 scripts or 1000 secrets with the solution.

I would rate the tool’s support an eight out of ten. The tech support is good and not complex. You can escalate the problems easily.

If you do not have prior experience, then the tool’s setup is complex. It has a complex installation process. You need to do pre-configuration correctly. The deployment takes around two to three days to complete. One experienced person is enough for the deployment.

The product’s pricing is feasible for enterprise customers. The pricing is expensive for smaller businesses. You need to pay additional costs for service implementation and local support.

I would rate the product a ten out of ten. We recommend this product for enterprise customers. The tool’s pricing and operation are a problem for small customers. They need to opt for Software as a Service. Companies need to install this product since they have a lot of accounts and passwords.

I'm a security solutions architect. I design solutions and hand them over to the client once they're implemented. We educate the users on how the solution works or turn it over to our managed services department

CyberArk PAM is an identity management solution used to manage privileged accounts on domains and local servers, including admin accounts in Windows environments and root users in Unix. 

With CyberArk, you can be fully confident that your existing accounts are secure. You will be 100 percent secure against attacks if you have all the right policies in place.

PAM could be more user-friendly and CyberArk could update the documentation to include more real-world examples. You have to learn it yourself through trial and error. In particular, the online documentation should have more information about troubleshooting.

I have used CyberArk PAM for two years. 

CyberArk PAM is stable.

CyberArk PAM is scalable. Managing 80,000 accounts is almost as easy as managing a thousand. 

CyberArk has a solid community. It's easy to get support and feedback from the forums. However, it can be difficult to access official technical support if you don't have a CyberArk certification because they have a process to limit unnecessary calls. You get excellent support once you're certified. 

Deploying CyberARK is complicated, but it is relatively easy for me because I have excellent scripts for implementing the prerequisites. It might be challenging for the average end user. It would be ideal to educate them in a demo environment because hard to explain this to a user without them. I would need to build an environment to show them. A simulated lab environment is one thing CyberArk PAM lacks.

We set up the prerequisites and discover the privileged accounts in the environment. CyberArk has a tool that scans the servers and detects accounts. This works best in a Microsoft environment. It's more difficult without Active Directory because you have to rely on the information the customer provides. You can begin the onboarding process once you've identified the accounts. 

It takes a month to set up the prerequisites and two or three days to install CyberArk PAM. Once it is deployed, it takes eight months to a year to tie up some loose ends. You may need to identify some accounts that you missed. The total time depends on the size and complexity of the user's environment. If you've configured everything correctly, it's simple to maintain. 

The ROI for CyberArk PAM is difficult to measure because the benefit is a reduction in risk. If CyberArk can eliminate most of the customer's security risks, then it's worth what they paid. 

CyberArk isn't cheap, but it's the best. You have to pay for quality. 

I rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager 10 out of 10. CyberArk is the leader in Gartner's quadrant. I tell my customers that they need to be 100 percent secure—99 percent isn't good enough. The top hackers will exploit that 1 percent hole, and you're finished. You need 100 percent, or else you're wasting your money.  

The solution is used to provide privileged access management to our datacentre environments, for anyone with admin rights with infrastructure or applications within the datacentres. Authentication to the solution in the PVWA (Password Vault Web Access) with onward connectivity via the PSM for Windows (PSM) as well as the PSM for SSH (PSMP). These provide the session isolation, audit, and session recording capabilities that CyberArk offers. The use of Privileged Threat Analytics (PTA) adds more control functionality to the solution.

The product has allowed us to improve both the management and access to privileged credentials, while also creating a full audit trail of all activities happening within isolated sessions of all tasks and activities taking place within the solution. 

This includes sessions via the solution and sessions to administer the solution itself. From a user perspective, we no longer need to try and create or remember complex passwords or have to be concerned about when they will change as the solution takes care of this and can and does populate these credentials for you so mistyping a complex password is a thing of the past.

Password management is a great feature, as all passwords are changed more frequently. This can be scheduled in line with a specific policy requirement or each time the credentials are returned to the pool for reuse and are always compliant with the password policy however long or complicated the policy states that they need to be. 

Another great feature is the Privileged Threat Analytics (PTA) as this can stop a session based on prescribed risk and bring it to an end or pause it pending approval to proceed.  

The admin interface of the Password Vault Web Access (PVWA) is moving from an old style (the classic interface) to a new style (the v10 interface) and unfortunately, this process is quite slow. That said, it has been moving in the right direction with features becoming available in the v10 interface and some user features are available in both classic and v10 interfaces. I would love to see all the classic interface features moved into the v10 interface or available in both interfaces within the next version. 

I've used the solution for about eight years.

The solution has been very stable.

The solution performs well, however, based on the user base may require a sizable footprint.

Support does vary depending on how critical your issue is and if it needs to be elevated to dev support.

Positive

Our previous solution was not a PAM solution and these days you can't afford to not use one.

The setup is not complicated when trained staff are used.

We handled the initial setup in-house.

Set-up costs can be minimized by controlling the number of applications that are made available within the solution. The newer licenses are per user and open up access to a suite of products, the best value, and security can be achieved by using more of the products.

We looked at other products like Delinia and Wallix.

Take advantage of the vendor's training or use a good partner to provide support and administration.

It's a privileged access management tool so it helps in making sure that all privileged accounts are compliant.

The product is an important security measure against credential theft. It ensures session isolation and password rotation including pushing passwords to the endpoints. 

It's also possible to pull the password from the CyberArk to ensure that there are no hardcoded credentials in scrips or DevOps tools. 

It provides a comprehensive access control list and auditing. Reporting capabilities are extensive.

New features are being added in every release, and there are few releases a year.

Enhancement requests can be submitted by the community and are taken into consideration by the company.

As configuration options are very extensive, it is sometimes hard to find the correct and complete way of customization or specific configuration. 

The documentation is rather basic and it is missing many use cases. 

It's also hard to test solutions without a development environment as CyberArk doesn't provide the possibility to run the environment for personal purposes.

I've used the solution for six years.

My company uses CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault for our servers and when our IT partners try to access our mission critical systems. We have also integrated the product with software tools used for authentication purposes. Our company's IT uses LDAP credentials to log in to the PVWA application while also being able to use granted privileges on one or more servers.

The most valuable feature of the solution is session recording.

There is a little bit of confusion in the implementation part, especially when one tries to understand the actual working of the product. The ones involved in the implementation of the product did not show the people in our company how they work on the product. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement.

I have been using CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault for a year and six months. The product is used in my company. I use CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault Version 12.0. I am a customer of the product.

It is a scalable solution.

We upgraded the solution even though we had subscribed to the product for ten years in our company. In our company, we wanted around 50 employees to be able to operate the solution.

From my end, I have not used technical support. I don't know if my colleagues have faced any problems because of which they had to contact technical support.

The implementation took place over a period of three months.

The solution is deployed on-premises.

CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault is a very expensive product.

I believe that the charges for maintenance and support are already included in CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault's pricing policy.

I will tell those planning to use the solution that it is a very expensive solution. Due to the cyber security constraints of the product, most of the companies are forced to update by paying money to CyberArk, which I feel is one of the problematic areas in the product. Feature-wise, it is a very good product.

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten.