Approaches to Administrative Workload Security

In an ideal world, the credentials used for day-to-day tasks in administrators’ workdays and the credentials used for their administrative tasks do not coexist. This illustration shows variations on a theme for protecting administrative credentials (and vice versa) from being compromised.

Although some small organizations may have users who act as administrators using their own everyday credentials, as shown in the topmost box, this is quite dangerous. In particular, if they are always working on the same PC for work and administrative duties, there is potential for their personal work activities to cause internal systems to be compromised.

The scenario represented by the middle box is more common, with an administrative user having two or more sets of credentials: one for day-to-day tasks and at least one for administrative duties. In many organizations, this work is still performed on one PC, or frequently on a fleet of PCs belonging to that user. A potential for exploitation still exists because the user’s day-to-day credentials and administrative credentials are coexisting on the same PC for some period.