CyberArk Privileged Access Manager Reviews

We use CyberArk Privileged Access Manager to provide a protective layer for our infrastructure, as well as for our customers. 

Additionally, the audit functionality that it provides is used as protection for our employees. It offers evidence, so if there's any question about wrongdoing, there's proof that the job was done correctly.

It's predominantly addressing challenges around reducing open access to critical infrastructure and providing a mechanism to control who can get to what and with what credentials.

It's improved the organization by making it easier to access privileged accounts. There are so many accounts needed by most people now and to have a a tool that can not only store those credentials for you, but manage them and give you easy access to them, has made life a lot easier. The removal of the need to manage and maintain those credentials and cycling passwords regularly is a pain for anybody. The tool manages all of that for you whilst giving you a simple means to use them.

The most beneficial feature in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is its simple user interface. It is definitely advantageous. I also appreciate the enhancements that come along with the continual updates that are provided. 

It has improved the organization by making it simpler to gain access to privileged credentials. There are so many accounts needed by most people now, and having a tool that can not only store those credentials for you but also manage them and give you easy access has made life a lot easier. The tool manages credential cycling, which is typically a pain for anybody, while providing a simple means to use them.

The solution is very good for protecting full levels of data privacy. We silo out different parts of the solution for access to to different types of infrastructure in the same way we would to our customers so that we can restrict who can get to something. In combination with our IM processes, we can be quite granular about who has access to what.

We can stay updated on regulations. The updates that are coming through help to keep the product secure and also add in updates and enhancements that give greater functionality and keep it relevant in terms of requirements.

The controls are fairly granular. We can control who can administrate it and who can use it and what they can use when they're using it. It has positively impacted visibility. As we leverage the product for administration of the product, we're able to be much more granular in how we provide the access. The audit controls allow us to see who is doing what, and when, it should be required.

It safeguards credentials. This is very important. The ability to have the product manage and maintain credentials and only provide them to authorized individuals, whilst not actually allowing them to retrieve those credentials, has become more paramount as we look to increase the security based on sort of ongoing real-world threats. 

It's helping with compliance, specifically around securing and hardening of infrastructure. It allows us to harden while still maintaining usability. 

In terms of operational efficiency, it depends on where you're coming from. Some things are more efficient, some things are a little less efficient yet more secure. It's that ongoing balancing act between operation efficiency and security that we must deal with.

We've been able to reduce the number of privileged accounts in the organization with the ability to have shared accounts. Since the credentials are not specific to a user and they're made available to a user for the duration of their session, we can reduce the number of privileged accounts we have within the organization. We've reduced the accounts by a half to a third between ourselves and our customers. 

I would like to see an easier way to define delegated roles within the administration of the core product. There is granularity within the tool, however, it is not simple to define those specific delegated roles.

I have used the solution for about nine years; it's been quite a while.

We have had some performance and stability issues. We have had instances where things weren't as they should be, however, we worked closely with the development support teams once the issues were escalated and managed to find either a resolution or a workaround to stabilize the solution. Typically, it is fairly stable.

Initially, we found some issues with scalability, however, over time, the guidelines and recommendations from the vendor have changed. By working closely with the available guidelines, the scalability is absolutely fine.

The customer service is generally quite good, although if it's more complicated, you have to wait for it to be passed back to their dev support, which can take more time. For simpler issues, the turnaround is relatively quick. If more complicated, it can take longer to get the right level of support. 

However, the support they provide is usually good, particularly their dev guys, who certainly know what they're talking about.

Before CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, we didn't have a PAM product itself. We were using Citrix to provide remote access, but the need to move into the PAM space arose to provide extra security and audit control. 

Although I wasn't involved with the process, there was a competition to define which product would be used, and the CyberArk Privileged Access Manager product came out on top.

The initial setup is relatively straightforward once you've done it. It is certainly a lot easier to repeat. We have multiple instances of the on-prem deployed, so we've done it a few times now.

The deployment involved approximately four or five people, based on role separation. In a smaller organization, it could likely be done with one or two people. However, due to the need to separate functions for design, implementation of the service, product implementation, network and firewall requirements, and IAM processes for all accounts, several people are required to ensure these functions are covered.

From a security perspective, we started seeing value right away because we didn't have a PAM solution at the time. Over the next sort of months and years, we settled into the product and started to look at how we could make it work for us. This has been an ongoing process over the years, particularly with product enhancements and new features, which provide additional benefits against the incurred costs.

I'm not involved in the pricing. 

About a year ago, we started looking at potential alternatives. There were two others that were considered and were ruled out for various reasons before looking at additional proof of concepts to see what other features could be leveraged from CyberArk Privileged Access Manager that we weren't using. It managed to pass all of the requirements.

We have customers for various industries and use the product internally ourselves. We are in the IT sector and provide services to organizations in a variety of sectors. 

It's definitely worth looking at as a PAM tool. I would steer towards the SaaS version since everything suggests that it is potentially a better way to go than on-prem. However, on-prem would still be suitable for those who must control and own their data. 

It's still worthwhile implementing, and overall, I'd probably give it an eight out of ten.

The use cases include end-to-end privileged access and session management and complete password rotations. All the privileged accounts are secured within the vault, monitored, and rotated from there.

It helps manage non-human or application accounts used in scripting or containers. All can be managed in CyberArk. They have Secrets Manager as well.

Session monitoring includes recordings of all activities performed. For instance, if I connect to a server, whether it is Windows or Linux, and perform some activities, all actions are recorded. It is a video recording.

It can integrate with Splunk, SNMP, and other solutions and technologies. We have integrated it with Splunk for the audit logs.

Its price might be high for some people, but the quality is top-notch.

Their support can be better. Their SLA timings are higher than others. If Delinea has an SLA time of three days, CyberArk is going to have an SLA time of five days. They do not breach the SLA. 

I have been working with this solution for around eight years.

Support is available through different models, depending on the license agreement. Dedicated customer support personnel can be assigned to specific clients. Additionally, professional service hours are available for purchase.

Typical case resolution can take between a week and two weeks, although priority cases may be resolved in a day. There are different levels of support. Initially, a case goes to a level one engineer. If unresolved, it escalates to level two and then to R&D if needed.

CyberArk has a large number of customers. If you compare it to other vendors, they are doing better than CyberArk because their numbers are less, so they are able to support in a better way. With CyberArk, we have a longer waiting time.

Neutral

There are two models: on-premises and cloud. For on-premises, we have virtual machines hosted on Hyper-V, but physical servers are recommended by CyberArk. Installation requires technical expertise.

SaaS deployment is faster than on-premises because most of the components are handled by CyberArk. The deployment is faster in SaaS, but the cost of SaaS is a bit high. They have different licensing costs.

From my perspective, the capabilities the tool provides match the investment. For small businesses, the price is fair compared to other tools. While the cost may be higher, I believe it is a top-tier solution.

It is a leading solution and one of the best SaaS solutions in the market. CyberArk is good at what they do, and the price reflects that. You have to pay the price for the same.

The price can vary based on the capabilities you need. We are paying a fair price for our environment. Compared to other solutions, its price can be high, but you are getting the best solution available in the market.

For 1,000 SaaS licenses, 100K euros might be required.

I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.

My company partners with CyberArk. I come from a service provider standpoint, so I don't use CyberArk within my company, however, I implement and support it for customers. 

Through the CyberArk partnership, I am certified in CyberArk. I perform activities such as demonstrations, presentations, deployments on-premises, and cloud solutions. 

CyberArk is now a comprehensive identity security solution. My interaction with CyberArk is mostly on the implementation side for our customers, focusing on design and integrating it into customer environments.

It's used in industries such as banking and finance. 

I find the discovery feature, which includes credential management, session management, monitoring, and remediation within a session, to be very valuable. It can remediate bad activities occurring in sessions. It offers good management and monitoring as well as good remediating within a session to help users remediate within managed sessions. There's good auditing and activity monitoring.

The session monitoring helps enhance security protocols. With it, users can have more control over what's happening within the session. You have more visibility and can restrict certain activities from happening, such as someone running a malicious command or someone trying to open or edit some sort of platform configurations. You can also send notifications and remediate or terminate sessions. Monitoring helps you build in polices around how to build polices around what's happening within a session.

The implementation of CyberArk impacted our customers' compliance with the regulatory standards in a positive way. Now customers are very happy since they can ensure credentials are compliant. In terms of password management complexity, since they're managing everything through CyberArk, they're able to create complex passwords. The user doesn't really need to remember passwords since the session is entirely being launched through CyberArk. That means that they're able to have much more compliant account management within an organization. They're also able to run reports as well as activity and compliance reports in terms of data related to accounts. It is much easier when you have a tool that manages that. Before CyberArk, having reporting and visibility around usage of accounts was really tricky. In terms of compliance, it's able to cover that by giving just a whole overview of accounts within the organization. 

CyberArk incorporates AI to improve Privileged Access Management. It's consistently improved as well. They do have a previous threat analysis analytics engine, which also can ingest logs from a SIEM solution if it's in place at the customer site. It's able to ingest this information and then give much more correlated security events. This module, the privileged analytics, is able to utilize behavior analytics and AI-related capabilities to be able to give security alerts to the teams. They can action alerts, or even automate to be able to have things blocked or terminated. For example, if someone changes their location. It has a geolocation that's able to then trigger maybe a password or QR code or email with a verification code to check it's that person. It utilizes AI capabilities or behavior analytics capabilities to have capabilities like that enforced.

It has the most plug-ins. Maybe thousands. So in terms of integration within different customer environments, it's much easier compared the competition. CyberArk a pioneer for PAM. They've always been the leader in terms of research and development and bringing new capabilities to the PAM. It will be able to cover 99.9% of most use cases.

In terms of improvement, since I am familiar with the product, there are no major issues. 

However, customer feedback suggests that unless it's on-premises, complaints about resources are justified as it enhances security with multiple functionalities. The managed cloud deployment option by CyberArk is easier to manage. Resource issues could be mitigated by choosing this option. 

I suggest adding more plugins and systems, which are often introduced later. Essentially, as long as capable personnel manage it, the solution works well. 

They should continue refining it and adding more dashboards and reporting features. Improved user-friendliness, granularity, and functionality would enhance the product further.

I have been using the solution for maybe four or five years. I would say it's closer to four years.

At the moment, I work with CyberArk mostly. I haven’t interacted much with other solutions like Imperva, as other engineers have taken over those responsibilities.

We are resellers, working ideally with partners, and I am certified with CyberArk. I am a certified delivery engineer for CyberArk PAM, and my experience is vast with the projects and teams I've been involved with.

When looking at Privileged Access Monitoring, many IT administrators have access to numerous privileged accounts, which increases the attack surface. CyberArk's PAM solution manages these credentials, providing value by reducing risks like data breaches or financial losses. The return on investment lies in improved security infrastructure, addressing over-privileged access, and reducing the risk of credential compromise, which is a major source of data breaches.

We're a service provider and offer services to customers that acquire CyberArk. I come from a design perspective for those implementing CyberArk. 

The company is open and shares information with partners. They inform us about new versions and allow enhancement requests through a portal. Many enhancements have come through this channel. If they keep going this way, everything will be good with CyberArk. 

I'd recommend the solution to others. 

Overall, I would rate the product nine out of ten. They've been the leader in PAM for maybe six years.

My main use case for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is installing it to prevent direct access to the users. For the privileged account, we are using the PAM, and all sessions have been monitored, with all logs shared and logged on the vault.

I have more to add about my main use case for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, specifically our Privileged Threat Analysis, which detects any suspicious event and alarms us.

The best features CyberArk Privileged Access Manager offers are PTA, Privileged Threat Analysis, and Alero, Remote Access Management, and these features are essential for enhancing security.

PTA and Alero have made a difference for my team by providing a predefined rule assigned and implemented on the PAM; for example, it sends us an email if there is any suspicious activity or threat credential loss, offering feedback related to user behavior. For Alero, Remote Access Management, it is a very wonderful Identity and Access Management with biometric MFA, mobile access, location tracking, and a small RBAC role-based matrix access that defines user roles, serving as a replacement for VPN.

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager has positively impacted my organization, showing significant improvement since all sessions are monitored and isolated using isolated RDP sessions, which are created temporarily and expire if not used.

In terms of specific metrics or outcomes, the time savings have been noticeable, and while it is not direct access, the PAM works efficiently between servers and end users, preventing users from running or installing unauthorized applications through the AppLocker application created on the PSM.

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager can be improved because I have experienced one issue where a user connected through RDP to a Linux server and the PAM could not fetch any commands or key store logging from the Linux server, which works fine on Windows servers. If they could combine both into one keylogger solution, it would be great, and increasing the number of CPM plugins for password retention while providing common web portal applications out-of-the-box would also help.

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

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is stable in my experience, with no issues of downtime or reliability due to our disaster recovery (DR) and high availability (HA) servers in place.

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager's scalability is good, as it can handle more users or workloads with our five-year roadmap indicating that the PSM server can manage around 20 sessions per hour, which is sufficient for our organization.

I would rate customer support a nine on a scale.

I previously used BeyondTrust and Delinea, but I did not switch because I noticed many features in CyberArk that are not available in other solutions.

I did not evaluate other options before choosing CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, as I had good experience with another live product.

My advice for others looking to use CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is to pay attention to the vaulting part, which is essential for every organization, as each server has a secured vault that connects over TLS with a lot of encryption details. The product is consistently enhanced, and the latest release is 14.6. I rate this solution 9 out of 10.

Our main use cases are to monitor all privileged accesses. It can be HTTPS, LDAP, SSH, or SQL management, so anywhere we have privileged access, we want to monitor it and place it under CyberArk.

Its monitoring capabilities are good. Whenever the end users start their session, it quickly allows you to monitor. However, if there are no firewall rules, it creates a video, but it does not take all the audit logs. For audit logs, you need firewall rules. It is very well described in their documentation. At the start, they communicate this to clients. The documentation is well-defined.

The features that are most effective, like every PAM solution, include monitoring and password rotations. 

The best thing about this solution, especially on-premises, is that we can interact with it directly. If we need to develop something, we are allowed or can do it by ourselves, which is most effective for us as administrators. It is not a black box. We have the ability to customize, especially the connection components.

There are some options in the web portal where they can improve the user experience. For example, in remote, there is a parameter called 'access to remote machine.' When we put host names in that field, we are not able to search it. It would be useful if a search feature was there to check if a machine is already onboarded. When we onboard a few machines in the same domain using just one account, we put the domain name in the address field and host machine names in the remote access parameter. However, we are not able to search within that field, which makes it difficult for us as admins to know if a machine has already been onboarded.

Other than that, I do not have any areas for improvement. Whenever we find any bugs or have a need for a feature, we open a ticket with them. They usually work on that if the same request has also come from other people. They are already good at doing that.

I have been working with CyberArk for almost six to seven years.

The solution is very stable. If you install the solution with CyberArk's guidelines, it remains stable. I also offer 24/7 services, and in three years, I have received two or three calls from clients indicating the solution was not working. It means the solution is very stable.

It is scalable. If a client has 100 users and wants to add 100 more users, it is possible. They can make it bigger and smaller, depending on their needs.

Our clients are medium enterprises.

Their technical support is good. They provide solutions and also the documentation if you ask. If you cannot find something, they point you to the right documentation. With support, I have never found any problems.

Positive

There is a lot of complexity if we are installing the solution on-premises. On the cloud, there is no such complexity, but on-premises, it is complex because there are different components like Vault, PVWA, PSM, and CPM. There are many components, and we need to follow a sequence to install these products. One needs a good knowledge of these components to install because we cannot just follow the documentation and install it. The documentation is vast. First, we need to read all of it. For first-time users, it is a bit difficult, but with experience, it is not a big deal. In terms of ease of use, I would rate it a six out of ten for on-premises and a nine out of ten for the cloud.

The deployment model depends on the clients. Our clients from banks usually use it on-premises. Clients in other fields do not want to install the machines on-premises because that is resource-consuming, so they go for the cloud deployment.

With the cloud deployment model, the clients need to deploy fewer components in their infrastructure. Vault and PVWA are already in the cloud, but other components like PSM, CPM, and PSMP are on-premises. It is not that all the infrastructure is on the cloud. There are a few components that are on-premises. However, in the case of on-premises, all the components are on-premises inside the infrastructure of the client, and they are responsible for maintaining that.

Our clients have seen an ROI.

If you want a Ferrari, it will cost you. The solution is really nice, so it costs the client, but in the long run, it is very good. If you buy a solution that costs a lot to maintain because it is not stable, and you are frequently asking for consultant support, it costs more. It is better if the client spends a little more money initially. In the long run, it is very good.

My recommendation depends on your needs and what you want to achieve. If you just want SSH, LDAP, and basic monitoring, you can consider other solutions like Wallix or One Identity, which cost less. If you need a lot of customization, such as you want to put in a lot of HTTPS ports and change the passwords of internal applications, this solution is much better than others. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten.

I am an admin, and I use this solution for all our users. We have 80 users in our environment.

By implementing CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, we wanted to secure our environment and track everything.

We were able to realize its benefits within four to five months of its deployment after we had onboarded everything.

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is cool. It has a lot of good tools, including everything we need. 

It could be more user-friendly. Sometimes I encounter issues, and I do not know what the issue is. It takes a lot of time to find the error and fix it. Sometimes it gives an error, but I do not know what the error is. I have to find the documents, but it does not provide all the details needed to fix the error. This is one of the day-to-day issues with CyberArk. 

When I contact support, it takes a long time to get help. They request all these logs, but they are not always relevant to my case. It is not always a definite help because I sometimes need help with issues that do not require any logs or device details. I am not sure if they read the case or not.

I have been using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager for four years.

It is good. We had a ten-minute outage last month. That is all. We do not know the reason. 

It is reliable.

CyberArk's support quality has to improve because we are totally dependent on them. I would rate their support a five out of ten.

Neutral

I used to use Okta. CyberArk Privileged Access Manager has more features.

We had a third-party professional service that helped us to install it. It took about four or five months. To deploy, we worked with three people.

It does not require any maintenance. We just have to do the day-to-day operations work.

New users should have training before they sign up for CyberArk. CyberArk should provide mandatory training so that everyone implements it properly. Sometimes, new users do not know what is going on, and they open a ticket, which might be an issue from their end. CyberArk should have a new user training service so that everyone is familiar with it.

I would rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager a seven out of ten.

I am a senior manager, and we have multiple clients for whom we deploy CyberArk Privileged Access Manager. We also manage or upgrade their instances. We handle migrations and new implementations. We take care of anything related to CyberArk.

The feature that I like the most is the Privileged Session Manager. It offers session recordings, logging, and tracking of user workstreams. It keeps a record of activities, allowing me to easily fetch screen recordings to detect any misuse and see who did what and what happened. Its benefits can be seen immediately after the deployment.

Based on the user experience that I see on a day-to-day basis, some changes could be made to the Privileged Session Manager tool to make it more user-friendly. The user interface of that tool could be more advanced and understandable to laymen, rather than being more of a developer tool. I would recommend more user-friendliness there.

CyberArk is more focused on the cloud solution. They are not going towards on-prem, but a lot of clients still like the on-prem solution. With the cloud implementation, you have a lot of dependencies on expert services. When you get into some issues, you have to wait for expert services. They usually reply in two to three days. That is something CyberArk needs to make better. If they want clients to move to the cloud, they need to support them in real-time. The client should not be waiting for two days to get a response for the issue. If CyberArk wants people to pay for cloud services, they need to make the cloud services much more real-time.

I have been using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager for approximately six years.

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is a stable solution. I have never faced any issues with stability.

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is a scalable solution.

I have contacted their support a lot of times. The quality of support is okay, but the time frame for replies should be much faster than it is currently.

Neutral

I have not used any similar solution for PAM. However, for managing the accounts, we have used some password management solutions such as 1Password, but they do not give you the accessibility and different components that PAM provides. They are just for password storage and keeping the passwords safe. A PAM solution from CyberArk or BeyondTrust solution provides a lot more than that, so we cannot compare them. There is no comparison.

I have deployed it both on the cloud and on-prem. My one client is on-prem, and another one is on the cloud.

The initial deployment depends on how extensive it is. For one client, it was quite easy, but after the deployment, it was tricky to deploy the components for AEM, EP, and CCP. On-prem implementation is much easier than the cloud. Cloud solutions require better and more immediate support. Cloud deployment is challenging due to dependencies on expert services.

It requires a bit of maintenance but not that much. Once you deploy the solution, it works, but there are always new upgrades. For example, if you deploy a web connector for web applications and Chrome releases an upgrade, you have to see whether CyberArk is supporting that upgrade or not. Accordingly, you have to update the drivers and other things for the web applications. The same goes with PSMP and SMP. If there are any version upgrades or any vulnerability patch fixes, you have to perform maintenance.

We help customers deploy it.

The duration depends on how big the instance is. To deploy all the components, the duration can range from three to six months.

It can be deployed by one person, but it also depends on how many instances of servers you are deploying, what is the concurrent usage, how many users are being onboarded, and what components you have. There is PSM. There is EPM and PSMP. It depends on what exactly the client requires. These are some factors that determine the time frame and number of people required.

From a client perspective, CyberArk's pricing is fair but there is a significant increase each year. They should limit the price increase because this could potentially drive customers to other partners. Price changes should be at defined intervals. There should not be sudden jumps.

I would rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager an eight out of ten.

My primary use case for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is managing privileged access across the organization. I focus on auditing compliance and ensuring compliance with financial systems like SAP.

The benefits of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager are typically realized over time, often facing initial resistance from various teams within an organization. While security, audit, and governance teams readily recognize the value of CyberArk, platform teams, and other stakeholders may resist its implementation. This necessitates a concerted effort to sell CyberArk internally, emphasizing its benefits and addressing concerns. Convincing internal stakeholders can be more challenging than securing buy-in from security or IT teams, often requiring three to six months after deployment for the benefits to become evident and widely accepted.

For me, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager's most valuable features are password and session management. It also includes technologies like Zero Standing Privileges and EPM, which I deploy for customers to demonstrate the return on investment.

CyberArk could enhance its usability by simplifying its architecture and design. Additionally, incorporating automated onboarding and offboarding features directly into the product would reduce the maintenance burden on administrators.

I have been using CyberArk Privileged Access Manager for eight years.

I find CyberArk to be quite stable. Exceptions occur mostly due to user errors. It has a large customer base and positive feedback within my network.

On-premises scalability is challenging for me due to deploying various components on different servers, but I find SaaS to be more promising in scalability.

In my experience, the quality of support has been inconsistent. Response times seem to correlate with the strength of the relationship with the CyberArk account manager, with quicker responses when rapport is strong.

Neutral

I worked briefly with BeyondTrust but returned to CyberArk, which has been my primary focus.

In SaaS, most tasks are abstracted, reducing the workload compared to on-premise solutions where tasks like network configuration, connectivity, SSL certificates, and management fall on the user. However, SaaS solution eliminate the overhead of building VMs and similar infrastructure. Overall effort for both approaches is comparable, but SaaS offers the significant advantage of CyberArk managing the underlying infrastructure, including the vault and web interface, a feature most customers prefer today.

Initial setups were challenging for me at first, but with experience, they became more manageable. It generally requires reviewing documentation and seeking initial support from CyberArk. The deployments take between three and six months.

Implementation involves a project team with a project manager and Windows engineers for tasks like VM provisioning. Typically, I have executed projects primarily by myself, sometimes with minimal assistance from junior resources.

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is more expensive than its competitors, such as BeyondTrust, Delinea, and ManageEngine PAM360. While ManageEngine PAM360 offers similar flexibility and support at a lower cost, CyberArk's SaaS solution is particularly expensive. This high price point has discouraged many customers from migrating from on-premise solutions to the CyberArk SaaS platform.

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

CyberArk manages the maintenance for the Privileged Access Manager.

Organizations must ensure users understand the importance of PAM and how it secures infrastructure. Training sessions, workshops, and demos are crucial for building user engagement and overcoming initial resistance.