Five critical actions to fortify enterprise cybersecurity
By: Ramón Salas, Territory Manager for LATAM at BeyondTrust.
In today’s digital landscape, cybersecurity is a strategic priority. With over 90% of organizations experiencing at least one identity-related security incident in the past year, according to BeyondTrust data, it is clear that threats evolve faster than many enterprise defenses.
In this context, protecting privileged access—both human and non-human—has become an urgent necessity.
The pathways to privileged access multiply in hybrid environments, providing attackers with opportunities to infiltrate undetected. One effective solution is adopting a comprehensive identity and access management approach that combines visibility, control, and automation.
Here, we share five essential actions to reduce risk and enhance security within your organization:
1) Discover all privileged access points and attack vectors.
You cannot protect what you do not know. The first step in an effective cybersecurity strategy is to identify all privileged accounts: administrative users, services, applications, databases, SSH keys, cloud credentials, and even corporate social media accounts. This visibility enables a true understanding of the attack surface.
2) Centralize credential management, including non-human credentials.
Many organizations still manage credentials in a fragmented manner, allowing each team (such as DevOps or IT) to handle passwords independently. This creates an environment prone to errors, leaks, and unauthorized access.
Best practice is to consolidate all privileged credentials into a secure vault with strong encryption and controlled access.
This also includes non-human credentials, such as scripts, bots, or APIs, which often embed passwords that must be removed and managed using secrets management tools.
3) Implement password rotation and session monitoring.
Password reuse or indefinite retention opens the door to prolonged attacks. Regular, randomized, and automated password rotation significantly reduces risk.
Additionally, real-time monitoring of privileged sessions is critical. Knowing who accesses what, when, how, and why enables detection of anomalous behavior and ensures traceability. This not only strengthens security but also provides transparency during audits.
4) Manage SSH keys and eliminate embedded credentials.
SSH keys, a key management system for remote communication between devices, should be treated as privileged passwords.
According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology guidelines, it is essential to discover, rotate, and monitor their usage, ensuring that each system maintains a unique and controlled key pair.
5) Leverage threat analytics and automate processes.
Modern cybersecurity demands predictive capabilities. Applying analytics to user behavior, accounts, and credentials allows for deviation detection, incident prevention, and improved access policies.
Automating workflows—from password generation and rotation to access approvals—reduces human error, accelerates processes, and frees valuable time for security teams to focus on more strategic tasks.
Cybersecurity companies like BeyondTrust emphasize that the key lies in viewing cybersecurity not as a series of reactive patches but as a robust architecture that safeguards access to the organization’s most sensitive assets: identities.
The most effective security system starts with fostering best practices among system users. Each company’s information is one of its most critical operational assets; therefore, the call is to standardize cybersecurity protocols according to the highest quality standards.
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