Tech

CyberArk Architecture

CyberArk

When it comes to protecting sensitive accounts that are open, CyberArk is a must-have security tool for managing credentials.  It safeguards the preferred account of businesses by mechanically storing passwords. CyberArk is utilized in numerous areas, including healthcare, sales, financial services, and more, due to its high level of protection.

A private account is one that may access sensitive information such as your social security number, account numbers, protected health information, and more. Various types of accounts are considered privileged in different companies. These accounts may include domain admin, regional admin, service, execution, crisis, and privileged accounts for users.

Table of contents

  • Discover and Administer CyberArk PAS’s Key Features
  • Secure Access Management System by CyberArk
  • How The cyberArk PAS architecture’s linked between these parts
  • Conclusion

Discover and Administer CyberArk PAS’s Key Features

CyberArk PAS safeguards sensitive data by storing privileged credentials like passwords as well as SSH keys.

It keeps an eye out for any signs of privileged accounts or login information in the system at all times.

It instantly onboards and rotates accounts or adds them to pending for privilege validation.

Isolation

  • In a standalone environment, CyberArk PAS protects jump servers to track credentials.
  • It uses many native operations to connect over a secure jump server.
  • It regulates special permissions and safeguards against assaults by malicious software.

Keep the track

  • It keeps a record of privileged sessions and puts them somewhere safe.
  • It checks the regularly stored video record logs for accuracy.
  • As soon as it detects suspicious activity, it begins visualizing most dangerous sessions first.

Monitoring

  • By skipping to certain actions, keystrokes, etc., it illustrates the desired action.
  • According to the risk tasks, it immediately warns the SOC as well as IT administrators.
  • The amount of accounts that can bypass privileged measures is decreased.

Remediate

  • Based on the risk assessment and the action, it immediately ceases or closes privileged connections.
  • In case of theft or concessions, it will automatically cycle credentials according to risk.

Secure Access Management System by CyberArk

The organization’s administrator passwords can be securely transmitted, preserved, and shared by designated individuals, such as IT personnel, on-call administrators, and local administrators at distant locations, with the help of Privileged Access Security Solution.

For the purpose of securely keeping and exchanging passwords within the business, CyberArk offers a multi-layered solution called CyberArk Privileged Access Security. Registration, VPN, a firewall, access control, encryption, & so on are all layers that make up this system.The CyberArk Training allows us to safely store and handle data by transforming account information, making them resistant to viruses and hacking attempts. Here are the components that make up CyberArk Privileged access security (CAS) architecture:

Powerful Storage Engine:

The terms “vault” and “Server” can describe storage engines. All of the information is stored in it. Data security, as well as verified and restricted access, were guaranteed.

User interface:

Accessibility to applications and users is made possible through the interface, which is also in charge of interfacing with the storage engine. The interface as well as storage engine communicate via the secure CyberArk vault interface.

 CyberArk

How The Cyberark PAS Architecture’s linked between these parts:

Web Access Interface for Password Vault:

Everyone in the firm, from end users to administrators, can use this web portal to request, view, and handle preferred passwords. Passwords are automatically generated for every user, so they can be accessed and used promptly.

Secure digital vault by CyberArk:

The most delicate data can be securely kept here on the network. Data isolation is achieved by installing the vault on a dedicated workstation.  When set up it’s pre-configured and prepared to go with cutting-edge security features. This means that running the system at full capacity requires no complex setup or security knowledge. Accounts stored in the vault may be accessed reliably if the vault is set up as a network of highly available servers.

PrivateArk Clients:

The PrivateArk user is a Windows application that serves as the PAS solution’s administrative user.  It can connect to the vault via the Internet, a wide area network, or a local network, and it may be deployed on as many distant computers as needed. In order to gain access to the vault, the administrator must specify which users have permission to do so, as well as the IP address of the computer running the PrivateArk client.

Before the user may access the secure area, the vault must authenticate them. With PAS, users may authenticate themselves securely using a mix of passwords, a set of keys and certificates. Following authentication, the PrivateArk client enables the user to create users, safes, and set up a vault structure.

In addition, users may keep tabs on who accessed the data at that time from any given location. To provide the utmost data security at all times, the vault encrypts all requests, commands, user setup, and file transfers before sending them to the PrivateArk customer.

Exclusive session coordinator:

Organizations can manage, keep tabs on, and protect restricted access to network devices with Privileged Session Manager. By utilizing vaulting technological advances, PSM is able to centralize the management of accounts with privileged access, allowing an administrator to initiate privileged sessions. The policies provided by PSM outline the times, purposes, and people who are authorized to access special accounts. Additionally, it allows the organization to filter limited protocols, which regulates which communication protocols a user can access.

Comprehensive session audits as well as playback reminiscent of a digital video recorder are provided by its tiny format, which records the actions that take place in privileged sessions. The vault server securely stores these recordings, making them available to authorized auditors.

Manager of Privileged Sessions:

Utilizing PSM for SSH, a company may keep tabs on, manage, and protect privileged access to their network’s devices. In order to manage privileged access to accounts from a single location, it makes use of vault technology, which allows a control point to initiate privileged sessions.

With PSM for SSH, you can find out at a glance who has the permission to utilize privileged accounts, when they can do it, as well as for what reasons. PSM for SSH can compactly capture every operation that occurs in the desired session. Authorized auditors have access to the encrypted text recordings kept in a vault server. Users are able to access target devices without knowing privileged link passwords thanks to PSM for SSH’s single sign-on capabilities.

Manager of Central Policies:

Without human intervention, CyberArk’s Central Policy Manager disables the Privileged Access Security Solution, which allows users to change as well as save passwords on remote devices. Additionally, businesses can use it to check passwords on distant locations and recover them if needed.

Privileged Access Security’s distributed structure makes it easy to handle credentials saved in a single vault by installing additional CPMs on separate networks. In addition to managing passwords per secure location supporting shared configuration files for extra GPCs in highly available solutions, the vault also helps with load-balancing. The PAS solution can handle complicated distributed systems because of its versatility.

Manager of On-Demand Privileges:

With CyberArk’s On-demand Privileges Manager, enterprises can keep tabs on who has access to what in UNIX, how often, and how securely. Vaulting software helps with this, so individuals may use their personal accounts to do work while still adhering to the lowest-privilege idea. The enterprise-wide control and visibility of super-users and special accounts may be achieved with its comprehensive solution, which fortifies IT. With the support of OPM, the Privileged Access Security solution unifies all facets of privileged managing accounts, allowing for central administration and monitoring from a single package.

Passwords Uploading Utility:

To automate and speed up the Vault installation process, the password upload tool uploads several password fields to the Privileged Access Security system.  In order for it to function, a pre-prepared file containing passwords and associated bulk properties is uploaded to the vault. If needed, the appropriate environment is also created. If you need to upload a username and password, you can run it from a command line.

Protected Threat Analytics:

Given the frequency with which privileged accounts get compromised in attacks, CyberArk Privileged Threat Analysis keeps tabs on both accounts handled by CyberArk Privileged Access Security as well as the ones that aren’t. It looks for signs of abuse or misuse of the CyberArk platform. Using tools like Golden Ticket and other advanced attacks, PTA hunts for malicious actors who have gained access to privileged accounts. As an additional safeguard, PTA detects and prevents attacks initiated by privileged accounts thus is an integral component of CyberArk PAS. Using passwords or SSH keys to verify privileged accounts, PTA can identify malicious behavior.

Administrative API:

Users are able to use the Privileged use Security system from any location utilizing software scripts in a very intuitive command-line interface through the CyberArk Vault Command Line Interface.

Software Development Kit Interfaces:

The Application Password SDK enables the PAS solution to centrally store, manage, and log important passwords, doing away with having to store them in the application itself, file configurations, or scripts. By taking this one-of-a-kind strategy, businesses will be able to meet both internal and external mandates for things like regular password changes and the tracking of their preferred access to all databases, apps, and systems.

The Application Password SDK has several APIs, including.Net, Java, CLI, C/C++, and COM. A “local server” called Application Password Supplier safely stores passwords that have been received from the vault. Application Password Provider gives users instantaneous access to their passwords, regardless of how fast the network is.

Application Server Credential Provider seamlessly and securely handles the application server keys stored in XML data source files. Because of this, you won’t have to reboot the application server to modify passwords or make any other modifications to the code. As a result, it enables business continuity and gets rid of downtime.

Conclusion

Thus What we know about CyberArk and its design comes from the blog post up top. It is my sincere wish that you find this blog’s content beneficial. We have gone over every single detail of the CyberArk architecture.

Author Bio

Suneel Ponnamudi

Suneel, a Technology Architect with a decade of experience in various tech verticals like BPM, BAM, RPA, cybersecurity, cloud computing, cloud integration, software development, MERN Stack, and containerization (Kubernetes) apps, is dedicated to simplifying complex IT concepts in his articles with examples. Suneel’s writing offers clear and engaging insights, making IT accessible to every tech enthusiast and career aspirant. His passion for technology and writing guides you with the latest innovations and technologies in his expertise. You can reach Suneel on LinkedIn and Twitter.