CyberArk Privileged Access Manager Reviews

We use this solution for the user ADM account onboarding process within our company. If they need server access, we create ADM accounts, and we onboard to CyberArk.

We use it also for the password protection process with other products. We can use this as a password wallet, and we create the password rotation in CyberArk.

We can grant access, check the system's health, and create policies for users.

Creating policies and the password rotation feature have been valuable. We don't have to memorize our password for the ADM account.

Security wise, it's really safe. The password expires within six to eight hours, so no one can get that password from us. Other users can't log in without our credentials, and also, the ADM account password will automatically rotate.

It's really user-friendly as well.

Report creation could be improved.

The policies could be more customized.

I've been working with this solution for almost nine months. It's deployed on the cloud.

The stability is really good.

We have more than 2000 users, and it's really easy to scale.

I have worked with Thycotic before. It is not user-friendly, although it has changed a lot.

Implementation was really hard, and the reporting was not as good as the users expected. In comparison to CyberArk, Thycotic was not better.

The deployment process is really easy, and I would give it a four out of five.

We got support from the CyberArk team but deployed it ourselves. It was easy to follow the documentation and user guide.

CyberArk is an expensive product.

If you can afford CyberArk Privileged Access Manager or you are looking 5 to 10 years in the future, it's a good investment. You will gain experience handling all these pieces using the one product. You can easily integrate with other products also.

You would have maintenance with other PAM products, and you won't with CyberArk. You can save that money by investing in a high quality product from the beginning itself.

Overall, I would rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager at eight on a scale from one to ten.

We Enterprise Password Vault to manage privileged credentials as well as some server and activity logging.

Before we implemented CyberArk, we had no password vault, so it was challenging to keep a record of who made changes and had access. With CyberArk, everything is a click away for us. We don't need to worry about reporting and other things. We can on our server to check who had access and the changes they made. 

The logs and reporting features are impressive.

We've been using CyberArk for about five years now.

CyberArk is stable, and the performance is awesome.

CyberArk is highly scalable. You don't need to worry about being dependent on only one server because you can deploy to multiple ones and manage it with all of them. If one fails, you can still use your access, so I think it's scalable.

We aren't using the solution extensively, but we plan to expand, and we'll definitely we'll continue with the same solution.

I rate CyberArk support 10 out of 10. We have contacted tech support a few times for help with some of the cases, and the support was perfect.

Positive

We didn't have a password vault solution before CyberArk. 

The initial setup was straightforward for us, but it depends on how you want to use it. It will become a little complex, and you need to gain some knowledge to customize it how you want. That applies to any product. I'll rate CyberArk 10 out of 10 for ease of setup. 

It took us around five or six months to deploy because we were also testing out some other products at the same time. And after testing for a few months, we decided to go with CyberArk for the final production rollout. Once you complete the setup, you don't need much maintenance, but we have around 40 system administrators managing the CyberArk server. 

We did the deployment with our in-house team.

CyberArk's license is too expensive. I rate it seven out of 10 for affordability.

We tried a couple of solutions before selecting CyberArk. Some of them are highly secure, but the reporting functions were tricky. A few were highly scalable, but they required a lot of resources to manage. We preferred CybeArk because it's easy to use and set up. Once you complete the setup, you have everything at the click of a button.

I rate CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault nine out of 10. If you're worried about privileged ID management, security, and scalability, you should go with CyberArk.

I am using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager to protect our servers. It can be either a Windows or Linux Server. Additionally, we have some network devices, and databases, such as Oracle and MySQL Server being protected.

It's improved our organization a lot. It has fulfilled some guidelines from the Indian government. There is some Indian government guideline for anonymity and access management. Similarly, there are guidelines for GDPR, and where we have vendor's control. CyberArk Privileged Access Manager has helped us to meet all the requirements.

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager's main benefit is it provides secure access to our servers. There are features to capture the user activity, it provides video recording processing. If the users are logged in to the server, we can see what activities they are performing. It's a very nice tool for Privileged Access Management. They have plenty of useful services and the solution has fulfilled our needs.

The solution could improve by adding more connectors. 

I have been using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager for two and a half years.

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is a stable and reliable solution.

We have approximately 200 people using this solution.

The support team from CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is very good.

I have not used other solutions.

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager's initial setup is straightforward. However, it can depend on many factors, such as architecture.

I used a partner for the implementation of the CyberArk Privileged Access Manager.

The number of people required for the implementation of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager depends on the number of applications. However, for my team, we have two to four people who were involved in the development of our architecture. 

From a technology perspective, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager has helped us to improve our services. It helped us to meet our requirements or guidelines. Whether it's audit perspective, internal, or external, whatever the guideline is, it meets our needs. If there are any independent agencies that need to be involved we meet those requirements.

The price of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is expensive. There are no other fees other than the standard licensing fees.

As part of our company's policies, we have to evaluate other solutions.

I would advise others that requirements should be discussed properly with all the stakeholders to understand their expectations. Additionally, it is important to explore our tool limitations. We should more focus on solution designing.

I rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager a nine out of ten.

There are many possible use cases, but in general, CyberArk permits users to target machines and rotate their passwords, and to record decisions. It is used to create security through PTA and to forward Vault logs and investigate events. It also enables users to access passwords in dev code without actually knowing the passwords. There are a lot of advantages to CyberArk.

As a consultant, I have seen a lot of CyberArk configurations. Sometimes we use the CyberArk Cluster Vaults with one DR. I also worked for a company that used only one vault, without a cluster, but they switched data centers when there was an incident.

I used to be a Windows and Linux administrator before I used CyberArk. The difference is that now it is simple for me to connect to my target machines. I can add them to my favorites, making access to the servers simple. 

CyberArk enables confidentiality. The passwords are stored in a fully secured Vault. If you want, you can access target machines without using PVWA. If you act as a remote desktop manager, you can register your connections and connect your target machines through the virtual IP and easily connect to your machines. Your connections and commands would all be registered to the Vault.

All the features of CyberArk are useful for me, but the biggest one is that CyberArk has logs for all the features. That is important when there is a problem. You know where to look and you have the information. In cyber security, the most important aspect is information.

Another valuable feature is that if you don't have access to a machine, you can see the machine in CyberArk. It's the management capabilities that CyberArk enables for a company that are very useful.

Other useful features are optional, such as recording decisions or rotating passwords.

The PTA could be improved. Currently, companies often have multiple domains and sometimes it's difficult to implement CyberArk in this kind of infrastructure. For example, you can add CPM (Central Policy Manager) and PSM (Privileged Session Manager and PVWA (Password Vault Web Access) for access, but if you want to add PTA (Privileged Threat Analysis) to scan Vault logs, it is difficult because this component may be adding multiple domain environments. 

CyberArk, as a solution, can easily adapt to a lot of environments, and you can add a lot of components to different zones, and that will work with the Vault. But not all the components, such as the PTA, can do so.

Also, it would be helpful if CyberArk added some features for monitoring machines when we access them. For example, they need to improve the PVWA. In general, when we don't use the PVWA, we don't have a lot of problems. For me, the PVWA is not perfect. I would like to see more features in the PVWA to administer our machines and to improve the transfer of data.

I have been using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager for more than three years.

I have implemented and maintained CyberArk solutions for clients, including creating administration functionality, such as platforms and support for users, so that everybody has 24/7 access to the account. 

I have also been involved in enhancing the solution by installing useful components and testing them. I would help analyze if a component could be of interest to the client and then implement it in production.

In general, I would help maintain the solutions and make sure that everybody can access the accounts, and that password rotation works.

I would rate WALLIX support at six out of ten, while CyberArk's support is a seven. The reason it's a seven is that we always have to send them the logs. Of course, we do get some response and they work on things, but sometimes we lose time on little tickets.

Neutral

If you have some experience, it is not complex to implement CyberArk. For me, the preparation is more difficult than the installation. Because CyberArk uses binaries, if you add good information, it will work. But if you miss something at the preparation stage, like the opening of the flows that you need, of course, it will be difficult. I know how the solution works, so it's not difficult.

First, you have to install the Vaults, and after installing them you can add PVWA to access the information. After that, you can install the PSM and then the CPM for the rotation, and that's it.

The time it takes to implement depends on the environment. Sometimes we work with complex environments and we have to adapt and collect all the information that we will need. We need to look out how the machines should be set up for the installation. It really depends on the size of CyberArk you want to install, including how many computers will be onboarded to CyberArk. There are technical and functional variables.

CyberArk is one of the best PAM solutions and one of the most expensive, but it works better than the others, so the pricing is fair.

I used to work on WALLIX Bastion, but CyberArk works better than WALLIX. WALLIX is a PAM solution, a French version, but when I was at another job I was a consultant on both WALLIX and CyberArk at the same time. That's when I saw that CyberArk is better.

It is simpler to upgrade the CyberArk environment and components than WALLIX. CyberArk has a user interface but WALLIX does not because WALLIX is installed on Linux while CyberArk is installed on Windows, making it user-friendly. Connecting is also simple with CyberArk. When a user connects to the PVWA, there aren't a lot of buttons. When users see the icon, they click "Connect" and connect. It is simple for them.

CyberArk can adapt easily to environments. For example, when we talk about connectors, CyberArk can easily connect to all the target machines these days. CyberArk can onboard network machines, Windows Servers, Linux servers, and Oracle Databases.

Web application passwords can be rotated. With its PSM and Selenium features, it enables the connection of a web application to CyberArk and rotation of passwords, so that it's not system accounts all the time. We can manage the web application accounts as well. CyberArk can also connect to the cloud.

When you work on CyberArk, you have to have more than one skill set. You are not just a PAM consultant because you manage passwords for all kinds of systems. You have to have skills in Windows, Linux, databases, and security because you manage those kinds of accounts. If you don't have those kinds of prerequisites, you can't work with CyberArk.

I started working on CyberArk when it was version 10.x and at this moment it is at 12 and more. The interface has changed and a lot of features have been added over that time. It's a good solution.

It is nothing but privileged access management. Most companies have servers, and for each server, they identify a generic ID to login. For example, if someone is an administrator, they will be using that ID to log in. So, we need to manage those IDs in a common repository, and that is why we have CyberArk PAM. CyberArk PAM is nothing but a common repository used to store passwords and manage them.

Managing passwords is a pain area in any organization. By using this tool, we have a set of policies and emerging technology where we manage these passwords.

It is a central repository. Therefore, if someone needs to access a server, then they go through CyberArk PAM. It provides a secure way to do this and CyberArk PAM records everything. For example, if you are connecting to a Linux server, then once you get into the Linux server and if it is integrated with CyberArk, it will automatically start recording everything that is being done. In most banks, seeing the recordings is very useful. If there are any gaps or something has happened which shouldn't have happened, then we can check the logs and videos. So, it gives security, in a robust manner, to the organization.

We have connected all the endpoints in our organization's servers. This has been an improvement. We are trying to connect any new servers being added into the organization to CyberArk PAM.

When it comes to PAM, it is always about compliance. It has a feature that enables you to access the password in a very secure way using encryption. You also need multiple approvals. For example, if you have access to CyberArk, it doesn't mean that you have access to the server. So, whenever you try to access that server, a request will go to your manager. Once he approves the request, only then will you be able to access the server. These are a few of the features that I like about this solution.

CyberArk PAM provides ease of access based on how they have designed it. It is clearly defined where you have to go and what you have to do. If you are an end user, it is very easy to use and provides a comfort level.

CyberArk PAM is able to find all pending servers that can be integrated, but we cannot get this as a report. We can only see the list of servers on CyberArk PAM. This is a problem that could be improved.

If you are an administrator or architect, then the solution is kind of complicated, as it is mostly focused on the end user. So, they need to also focus on the people who are implementing it.

I started using CyberArk PAM in 2016, so it has been almost six to seven years. I started with version 9, and now it is currently on version 12. So, I have used multiple versions of CyberArk.

Its scalability is good. It is available on-premise and they started having a cloud three or four years back.

Our environment is very small. We are managing around 2,000 users. Whereas, I have seen it managing users of 10,000 to 15,000 servers. We have around 30,000 users, and I have seen that kind of environment, though what I am currently managing is much less. When it comes to the Middle East, it is always regionally focused, it is not international. Our organization is specific to one country and not international.

The technical support is from the US. The only problem is that they reply during their own time zone. It has been a bit difficult to reach them, but we get the answers, they are just a bit delayed.

Neutral

We previously had Hitachi ID PAM. We switched to CyberArk because of the features and interface, where there is a bit of distinct difference between the two solutions. Though, the architecture is the same.

When you do an implementation, it is always challenging internally. While the setup is very easy because they give you tools for installation, you have certain things that you need to keep in mind when you implement it in an organization. These things become a kind of a roadblock. Every time that something comes up that you need to enable from the organization's side, e.g., if you have to unlock a few things on the organization's side, you must go through a process and some teams might not allow you to go ahead with it.

The deployment took three to six months.

For the deployment, we needed a solution architect, two consultants, and two people to work on the BAU. While it depends on your organization's size, we needed around five to 10 people to implement it. 

The ROI depends upon a company's capability to maximize the usage of this application. If you buy something, it is your responsibility to use it at an optimal level.

Previously, the pricing was very meager. They started publicizing and advertising the solution, growing CyberArk, as an organization. They also changed their pricing with that growth, e.g., the pricier the product, the more people who will purchase it.

Bomgar was one of its competitors, now it is called BeyondTrust. Another competitor was Thycotic. 

While CyberArk PAM has survived, it needs to be more flexible. They are currently focusing on the solution's GUI, but rather than the GUI, they need to focus on the solution's internal aspects, e.g., making the steps a bit easier. There are too many things to focus on and be aware of. So, they need to streamline it in a way where it is more compact.

You need to know the sizing of your company and not randomly use it, thinking you may need to use this solution in the future. You need to use most of the features, e.g., if you have 10 features, then your company should use at least seven features of CyberArk. If you are not going to use seven or more features, i.e., if it is below seven, you should not go for this tool.

We were using Secrets Manager for managing a few SSH files, but we are not using it anymore.

I would rate this solution as eight out of 10. CyberArk is a solution to problems being faced by multiple companies and organizations. It removes security threats and vulnerabilities from an organization in a secure way, and your credentials are handled in a secure way. Therefore, it solves this pain area in a company, and that is why I think they are one of the top tools.

We mainly use it to protect servers from inappropriate access and ransomware.

We started with on-prem solutions years ago. Our most recent implementations were done in data centers and the cloud. However, we are not in the cloud for CyberArk.

It is a really valuable tool. From the very beginning of my career in cybersecurity, I found that CyberArk is one of the best solutions that I could recommend to our customers. While it is usually seen as an access and identity management solution, it is a cybersecurity and cyber defense tool from my colleague's and my point of view.

It is a single tool that isolates possible kinds of malware. You get lateral movement blocking and auditing information, e.g., you know who is doing what. You are getting protections from the service as well as a useful environment. All your admins can easily go in and out of your company while accessing your servers in a secure way, even if they are working abroad.

One of the best points is that it gives you full control for all the use cases in your infrastructure, in terms of servers, applications, social networks, batch processes, etc. 

It gives you the ability to know what is happening, who is executing everything, and recover that information over time. Everything is recorded there. This is useful, not only for auditing proposes, but for admins and users. This also helps with troubleshooting. For instance, an application or system starts failing at 4:30 in the morning on a Sunday. Usually, the first questions that you ask yourself is, "What changed at 4:30? What has happened? Who was touching that server?" WIth CyberArk, you have the ability to search for that information and find it in minutes. It is really useful for troubleshooting.

The PPA from CyberArk provides a lot of information about access and allows for possible detection of fraudulent use or different tries of accessing, even for family Internet users. Thus, it gives you another source of information regarding risk.

We are using Secrets Manager with some of our customers. We are using it mainly for containers and DevOps. This secure access is really important, and becoming more important every day. We are constantly moving customers to the cloud. Every day, containers are more important for our customers as they extend into microservices, etc. 

The possibility to integrate with the DevOps cycle is vital right now. Sometimes, containers are deployed while some clients have them very protected. They have a lot of things with Panorama, Microsoft, etc. That is a risk because you are deploying things quickly, along with errors and other things that you are developing. So, having to use hard-coded passwords here would be a big mistake. 

Secrets Manager accelerates a lot of the possibilities and simplifies the process, since development teams just need to use credentials. When they arrive on a project, there are new people or resources in their development teams. Thanks to CyberArk, they just need to manage their identities to have access to everything. They don't need to receive credentials nor search for them. They have everything the day that they start working.

We find it easy to use CyberArk PAM to implement least privilege entitlements. We usually do some interviews at the very beginning with different teams to understand their real needs. We define saves and different AV groups for the kind of users that we are going to prepare. Then, the process to assign permissions to different groups is really easy and straightforward. If you want to change or reduce access, that can be easily changed at any moment.

I have been using it for more than 10 years.

In the last year, it has been a very stable platform.

Scalability is fantastic. It has been really easy to scale. In fact, most of our customers who start, or have doubts about how to start, we propose to them, "Well, if you are not sure or don't have the budget right now, you can start with a small deployment, then we will grow." It easily grows and you can add components. 

Other customers have started with a small CPD deployment, then replicated. We put high availability on another CPD. It is really good for public clouds.

We have some customer environments that are over 10,000 servers as well as some environments with more than 50,000 managed identities.

I would rate their technical support as eight out of 10. They are usually really good and quick about answering any questions that you raise. However, they are sometimes not flexible with things. For instance, from one day to another, there might be something that had been done years ago by CyberArk, then they say, "We do not support that." You then have to initiate a complaint and start working with them. Things might become complicated and months pass while you are working with them. Usually, they are good and fast, but sometimes they seem to be blocked with problems, e.g., you will suddenly be working with another team instead of the team that you were working with the day before.

Positive

I have been working with CyberArk and with the CyberArk teams for years. They have been able to adapt the solutions that they have developed or bought. They have grown a lot with the acquisition of different companies. They have been able to adapt them, make them valuable, and helpful.

The initial setup is straightforward because we have a lot of experience with it. While there are a lot of components, I don't find it difficult.

A deployment can typically be done in less than a week, but it does depend on the environment.

We have developed our own methodology for the implementation and deployment of CyberArk. We put the final users at the center of their strategy. One of the things that we have found that fails when deploying a PAM solution is that everyone focuses on the tool. CyberArk works and we know the tool is there, so we just focus on how the different groups are working with their servers, applications, etc. We focus on adapting the deployment in a way that does not disrupt their jobs. We try to be non-disruptive and not change the way users work.

We adapt the solution to already existing workflow processes, tools, accesses, etc. This is one of the best parts of CyberArk. It provides a lot of flexibility to adapt.

The main problem for the tool is its licensing. I work for a really big company. When you try to develop this as a service, usually you work with leverage teams who are formed with dozens of members. You might dedicate one FTE, or less, for something, e.g., an antivirus administrator. You might have half an FTE's effort dedicated to administering the antivirus, but then you have a team of about 30 users who might access that ticket. The problem is that CyberArk eliminated the possibility of concurrent users years ago. This is a big problem for companies who work with leverage teams.

You need to pay for everyone. 40 licenses are used by 20 or 30 people. This is a big problem because licenses are not precisely cheap.

It provides the broadest point of view for privileged access management solutions in the market. We have tested several other proposals and tools for our customers and ourselves. There is a huge difference with using CyberArk.

We evaluated CA PAM and another solution. The main difference is that they cover just a part of the solution. They promise the solution will be very simple to deploy because they only have a simple appliance. However, they are actually really difficult to deploy for an entire project as well as give you value. We have experienced a lot of support and integration problems. You need to do a lot of things by yourself. Whereas, in CyberArk, you have plenty of plugins and developed material in the marketplace. 

This is the big difference at the moment. When you are deploying, it seems like a very simple project, and the other solutions will tell you, "Well, it's just an appliance," and then it becomes a nightmare. Whereas, CyberArk does what it does. You need to deploy several servers, but it works.

From time to time, people in the market are like, "Wow, it was born as a cloud-native solution." Sometimes, this is real and means something, but usually it is mostly a marketing thing. Why would we ignore all a solution's previous experience just for something born in the cloud? Most of the IT solutions that we use in the cybersecurity market are not born in the cloud. For instance, if you go with Securonix or Sentinel, there is a huge difference in the way they were conceived and the way they were born. Just because something is cloud-native or new doesn't mean that it is good. I wouldn't go for something that is cloud-native, just because it is.

I would rate CyberArk as nine out of 10. I won't give the 10 because I have my problems with the licensing. However, the solution is completely recommendable and a must-have in every environment.

We use it to control privileged access within the environment, including domain admins and server admins.

We're using the CyberArk Privilege Cloud version, which is the PaaS.

It provides a one-stop shop for the majority of our administrators to get the privileged access they need. It has enabled us to reduce risk as well, and that is the largest benefit that we've encountered through the solution. We've reduced the number of admins in our environment significantly.

It provides an automated and unified approach for securing access across environments, including hybrid, multi-cloud, RPA, and DevOps, as well as for SaaS applications. For what we're using it for, it's doing all of that seamlessly in one place. It helps us to quickly adapt and secure modern technology, and that's another reason we chose CyberArk. They already had integrations with solutions that we were either moving toward or that we already had. We weren't going to have to do them as customizations.

The ability, with Secrets Manager, to secure secrets and credentials for mission-critical applications means people don't have to go searching for them. They know where they are—they're in CyberArk—so they don't have to go to a separate place. They have one identity to manage, which is their single sign-on identity. From there, they can go into CyberArk to get the access they need. That's an area that has been very helpful. And from a risk perspective, the multifactor authentication to get to those accounts has also been awesome. That helps us to be in compliance, as well as secure.

The Privileged Session Manager has been the most useful feature because we're able to pull back information on how an account is used and a session is run. We're also able to pull training sessions and do reviews of what types of access have been used.

We also use CyberArk’s Secrets Manager. Because AWS is the biggest area for us, we have accounts in AWS that are being rotated by CyberArk. We also have a manual process for the most sensitive of our AWS accounts, like root accounts. We've used Secrets Manager on those and that has resulted in a significant risk reduction, as well. There's a lot to it, but from a high level, we've been able to get some things under control that would have been difficult otherwise.

For DevOps, we've integrated some automation with CyberArk to be able to onboard those systems. There are some native tools like the CFTs that we're using with CyberArk to get CyberArk deployed automatically to them.

It also gives us a single pane of glass to manage and secure identities across multiple environments; a single view with all of the accounts. It's super important for us to be able to see all of that in one place and have that one-stop shop with access to different environments. We have lots of domains because a lot of acquisitions have happened. It's important for us to be able to manage all of those environments with one solution and we do have that capability with CyberArk.

I've been using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager at this company for two years, and all together for the past six years.

The stability is great. We haven't had problems with it.

The scalability is very good. I'm surprised they keep as many logs and video recordings as they do on their side. But scalability hasn't been a problem. If we wanted to scale up, we could certainly do so. All we would have to do is add more servers on our side, with our PSMs (Privileged Session Managers). The way the solution is built out, you can expand it elastically pretty easily.

We have around 400 users right now who are mostly in IT. There are developers, database administrators, as well as our Active Directory enterprise teams, and some of our cloud implementation and infrastructure teams. We have some in incident response people, from information security, who use it as well.

We're looking to expand it in the coming year. We've already started that expansion. It's the developers we're targeting next and there are a lot of them. We're looking at a couple of hundred more users within a year.

If there is an area that has room for improvement, it's probably working with their support and getting people on the phone. That is hard to do with most products in general, but that seems to be the difficult area. The product is fantastic, but sometimes we want somebody on the phone. I would rate their support at eight out of 10, whereas the rest of the solution is a nine or 10.

From a technical support perspective, they've been really good. There has just been a little bit of trouble with the database stuff, but that's because ours is a very aggressive deployment. Sometimes, when working with support, they aren't as aggressive as we are.

Positive

I've used Thycotic and Hitachi HiPAM, and we've used some custom in-house build solutions.

The reason we switched is that Thycotic opened up the door to that possibility when we talked about pricing. The price came out to be something similar to what we were spending. We were basically going to have to redeploy the whole Thycotic solution to get what we needed, and that opened it up for us to evaluate the landscape.

There were some complexities about the setup, but deploying a solution like this is going to be complex, no matter what solution you go with. CyberArk did an excellent job of making sure that we had everything we needed. They had checklists and the prerequisites we had to do before we got to the next steps. Although it was complex, they were complex "knowns," and we were able to get everything organized fairly easily.

Our initial deployment took about two weeks.

We broke the deployment into four phases. The first phase was called Rapid Risk Reduction, and with that we were getting our domain admins under control, where we went with domain admin, server admin, and link admin. A part of that was the server administrators and Linux administrators. All of that was part of a very short-term goal that we had. 

Phase two was called risk reduction, where we were focused on Microsoft SQL, the database administrators, and Oracle Database administrators. It also included bringing in some infrastructure support as well. 

Phase three was enterprise-grade security, and with that we've been pushing the network tools and AWS admins, along with some other controls. 

And our last phase, which we've just recently started on, is one where we are going to be pushing hard to get developers onboarded into CyberArk. There are a whole lot of little details that go along with all of that. The initial auto onboarding happened in phase three, but we also have auto onboarding that we're looking to roll out across a larger group.

We implement least privilege entitlements as well. We started out from a high level of not going the least privilege route and, rather, we locked things down in a way that they were managed, at least. Then we started knocking down the least privileged path. You have to start somewhere, and least privilege is not going to be the first option, out of the gate. You're going to have to take stepping stones to the best practices. And that's what we've done. We took this large amount of high-risk access and brought it into CyberArk and then pulled access away over time and have been making things more granular, when it comes to access to the systems. The access within the systems, within CyberArk, is absolutely granular and we have been very granular with that from the beginning.

For maintenance of it we need about one and a half people. My team supports it and, while one full-time person is probably enough to support the solution, my team is split up. The general operations of CyberArk are what take up the most time. The actual running of the solution, from an engineering perspective, is very lightweight; it's hardly anything.

We did not use a third party for the deployment.

We started doing some comparisons of different tools and that's why we ended up switching to CyberArk, after discussions with both Thycotic and CyberArk. When looking at the capabilities, we ended up moving towards CyberArk. We felt it was a more mature solution and that some of the connectivity and reporting was done in a way that we would prefer, for a company of our size.

Thycotic is a good tool. A lot of IT people already understand the structure of how it runs. The upgradability is nice as well. You can just click an "upgrade" button and it upgrades the solution for you. The cons of Thycotic include the way that the recorded sessions are done. In addition, proxy server connections were not available. Maybe they are now, but at the time we were building out custom connectors and we had to go through a third party to get those developed. It was very bad and every step of the way was like pulling teeth. That really soured our relationship with them a bit because we couldn't seem to execute with that solution. When we started talking with them about what we needed it to do to make things easier, they ended up recommending a full redeploy. That's not ideal under any circumstances for anyone. That's why we took a step back and evaluated other solutions.

With CyberArk, some of the pros were that their sales team and engineers were very quick to come in and help us understand exactly what we needed. The deployment timeframe was  also much shorter. We didn't have to work through a third party, as we would have had to with Thycotic. And the type of relationship we've had with CyberArk is one that I wish we had with other vendors we use. They've been phenomenal working with us.

CyberArk's abilities are amazing. We're just starting to hit some limits, but we're able to get through the majority of them. Some of the database stuff is a little bit more involved. The other things, like cloud and all of the Linux and Windows, have not been a problem at all. It's not that the database stuff is a problem, but it's just more complex.

If you want to talk about CyberArk providing an automated and unified approach for securing access for all types of identity, "all types" is a strong claim. I wouldn't ascribe "all types" of identities to anything. But for everything that we're doing with it, it has been a great tool and it's doing that for us.

We are mostly rotating passwords and using PSM for remote connections.

It provides us with better security and control over our accounts.

It provides an automated and unified approach for securing access for all types of identities. This approach is important for us. The more things we have that can be automated, the easier it is to get things done.

It gives a single pane of glass to manage and secure human and machine identities across environments, which is important for us.

It saves time when it comes to onboarding new employees and providing them secure access to SaaS apps and IT systems. It probably saves a couple of hours.

The automatic rotation of credentials is probably the most useful feature.

It should be easy to use for non-technical people. Its interface can be a bit difficult. Some parts of its interface are not very intuitive. Some of the controls are hidden, and instead of having a screen with all the controls for that account on it, you have to use menus and other similar things.

Its documentation could be better. Some of the documentation lacks details for people who aren't super technical.

I have been using this solution for about six years.

It is stable. We never had any hiccups that were caused by CyberArk.

It is easily scalable. In terms of usage, it is being used by all of IT. We have over 500 users utilizing the solution. We're always adding new people and features, so its usage is increasing every day. We plan to implement more types of accounts. 

Their technical support is good, but some of their documentation lacks details for people who aren't super technical. I would rate them an eight out of 10.

Other than the regular Password Manager, they didn't have any real solution. They chose to look into CyberArk because it is a good security practice to have accounts automatically rotate and secure remote connections.

It is pretty complex, but they have professional services to help with that. It is complex because of all the security around it, all the hardening, and getting everything set up to communicate with each other. I am not sure about the duration of the initial deployment because I wasn't on the team then.

In terms of maintenance, it doesn't require a lot of people. Maintenance is just keeping up with patches. It is pretty stable and doesn't require a lot.

We used CyberArk's professional services. They were good, and they helped get everything set up. They also helped do upgrades.

It is in line with its competitors, but all such solutions cost too much money.

It is a good choice. I'm not sure if they're the market leader or not, but they seem to have the biggest footprint. I know there are a couple of competitors, but I've never used them. The other two that I know about are not as widely used, so there is a bigger community for support for CyberArk, and there is also CyberArk's support.

CyberArk is good as a technology partner for ensuring that we maintain a strong security posture throughout our digital transformation. It is a needed platform to have.

Given my experience with CyberArk PAM, to a colleague at another company who says, “We want to solve cloud security challenges with born-in-the-cloud security solutions as opposed to legacy solutions that have been adapted to the cloud," I would say that CyberArk is a good option for the cloud. That's because you don't have to worry about maintenance, and all the integrations are already in place. The different accounts that CyberArk can integrate with are already in place.

It doesn't really give a single pane of glass to manage and secure identities across multiple environments. It only gives visibility into CyberArk and how the accounts are working there. If something is wrong with an account, sometimes, you have to check other tools, such as Active Directory, or permissions.

We don't use CyberArk’s Cloud Entitlements Manager and Secrets Manager. We use CyberArk PAM to implement least privilege entitlements, and it is neither easy nor difficult to implement them. It is somewhere in the middle. The adoption of least privilege entitlements by using CyberArk PAM is also somewhere in the middle. If users aren't really technical, they would have problems with it.

It provides consistent controls to enable secure access, manage secrets, and implement least privilege at scale across our environment. It is somewhat user-friendly for people to just rotate passwords. Its interface can be a bit difficult.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.