Unified Cloud Privileged Access Management for Life Sciences Enterprises: A Comprehensive Approach

Britive CPAM

One platform - True Just-in-time and ephemeral dynamic authorization - Any cloud and on-prem environment

Introduction

Pharmaceutical and life sciences companies operate in highly regulated environments where the security of sensitive data, intellectual property, and research information is paramount. With complex IT landscapes that span both cloud-based and on-premises systems, these organizations face the challenge of managing and securing privileged access across diverse environments. This document explores how a unified Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution, such as a cloud-native platform like Britive, can address these challenges by providing operational simplicity, enhanced security, and streamlined compliance.

The Need for a Unified PAM Solution in Life Sciences

1.??????? Simplifying Operations in a Complex Hybrid IT Environment

Many life sciences companies manage a mix of legacy on-premises systems and modern cloud-based applications used to support research, development, clinical trials, manufacturing, and global distribution operations. These systems house sensitive data, including intellectual property, patient information, and regulatory documents. Securely managing privileged access across both on-premises and cloud resources is critical to protecting this data and maintaining operational integrity.

• Challenges: Managing disparate access control tools for on-premises and cloud environments creates complexity and increases the risk of misconfigurations. Ensuring consistent enforcement of access policies and security controls across hybrid environments.
• Unified CPAM Solution: A cloud-native PAM platform like Britive provides a single, unified control plane for managing privileged access across both on-premises and cloud resources, significantly simplifying operations. This eliminates the need for multiple tools and interfaces, reducing administrative overhead and human error, while ensuring consistent security policies across environments.

2. Ensuring Robust Security in a Highly Regulated Sector

Pharmaceutical and life sciences companies operate under strict regulatory frameworks, including the U.S. FDA, EMA, GDPR, HIPAA, and other global regulations. Ensuring the security and privacy of sensitive data and access to critical systems is a top priority.

• Challenges: Maintaining compliance with diverse regulations across multiple regions requires a robust and flexible access management strategy. Ensuring all access controls are auditable and meet regulatory requirements for data protection.
• Unified CPAM Solution: Britive’s platform streamlines compliance by offering centralized management and automated enforcement of access policies. It provides comprehensive audit trails for all privileged access activities, which simplifies regulatory audits and reduces the administrative burden associated with compliance reporting. This operational simplicity allows security teams to focus more on strategic initiatives rather than managing multiple systems for compliance.

3. Protecting Sensitive Research and Intellectual Property

Life sciences companies are prime targets for cyberattacks due to their valuable intellectual property (IP), such as drug formulas, clinical trial data, and proprietary research information. Protecting this IP requires strong controls over who has access to it, when, and why.

• Challenges: Traditional models of persistent privileged access increase the risk of insider threats, data breaches, and accidental leaks. Securing high-value assets while enabling efficient access for researchers and collaborators.
• Unified CPAM Solution: Britive’s Just-In-Time (JIT) access controls ensure privileged access is granted only when necessary and for a limited duration, reducing the risk of over-provisioning and unauthorized access. This not only enhances security but also simplifies the operational management of access rights, as security teams do not need to manually provision and de-provision access continually.

4. Managing Third-Party Access and Vendor Risks

Pharmaceutical and life sciences companies collaborate with numerous third-party vendors, research partners, and contractors who require access to different parts of their IT environments. Managing these third-party access points is crucial to maintaining security and preventing potential breaches.

• Challenges: Providing secure, yet flexible, access to external partners without compromising the organization’s security posture. Ensuring third-party access is monitored, controlled, and revocable at any moment.
• Unified CPAM Solution: Britive simplifies third-party access management by providing controlled, temporary, and monitored access based on specific roles and requirements. The unified approach enables companies to manage all third-party access from a single platform, reducing complexity and ensuring security without the need for multiple, disparate tools.

5. Integrating with Existing On-Premises Infrastructure

Despite a shift towards cloud-based solutions, many pharmaceutical companies continue to rely on several on-premises applications that are critical to their operations. Ensuring these systems are secure and integrated into a unified access management framework is essential for a seamless and secure IT environment.

• Challenges: Integrating legacy on-premises systems with modern access management solutions without causing disruptions or requiring significant changes to existing infrastructure. Maintaining consistency in access control policies across both new and old systems.
• Unified CPAM Solution: Britive provides seamless integration with existing on-premises systems such as Active Directory, ERP, and lab management applications through secure broker connectors. This unified approach allows organizations to manage all privileged access centrally, reducing the need for additional infrastructure changes and minimizing operational disruption.

6. Enhancing Incident Response and Monitoring

Given the sensitive nature of the data handled by pharmaceutical companies, having a robust incident response and monitoring capability is vital. Real-time monitoring and AI-driven anomaly detection can help identify suspicious behavior early and initiate a swift response to mitigate potential damage.

• Challenges: Detecting and responding to unauthorized access attempts and insider threats in real time. Achieving visibility across all privileged access activities in both cloud and on-premises environments.
• Unified PAM Solution: Britive offers comprehensive visibility into all privileged access activities across hybrid environments, enabling security teams to detect, respond to, and mitigate potential security incidents from a single, unified dashboard. This operational simplicity reduces the time and effort required to monitor multiple systems, enabling more efficient and effective incident response.

How Britive CPAM platform Help Meet These Challenges

Britive offers a range of advanced product features that directly address the specific challenges faced by life sciences companies in managing privileged access across complex, hybrid environments:

1. True Just-In-Time (JIT) ephemeral Access

• Description:?JIT access allows for the granting of privileges only when they are needed and for a limited time and on ephemeral basis, significantly reducing the risk of over-provisioned access and minimizing the attack surface. Modern JIT does not require any static service accounts with over-loaded privileges that are always present. Static shared accounts have been a major cause of security breaches in recent times.
• Benefit:?By reducing the window of time during which users have elevated access, JIT and ephemeral access helps prevent unauthorized access and insider threats, protecting sensitive research data and intellectual property.

2. Granular Policy Management

• Description:?Britive CPAM platform provides granular policy management that allows organizations to define detailed, context-aware access policies based on user roles, resources, time of day, geographic location, and other factors.
• Benefit:?This level of granularity ensures that access is strictly controlled and tailored to the specific needs of each user or role, enhancing security while providing the flexibility required for complex research environments.

3. Access Builder -Self-service vending of access policies delegated to end users

• Description:?The Access Builder feature of Britive platform allows administrators offer self-service vending of access profiles to users and teams. Access build also provides ability for users and teams to craft their own permissions that admin team can approve and make it available in users profile catalogs to check-out when required. Admin team have the flexibility to apply necessary guardrails that align with organizational policies and requirements.
• Benefit:?Access Builder simplifies the process of creating and managing access policies across a wide range of cloud and on-premises resources, reducing administrative overhead and improving operational efficiency.

4. Access Broker - Extend the unified privilege access operating model down to on-prem and private cloud resources.

• Description:?Access Broker is a key feature of Britive CPAM platform that enables enterprises to extend the same consistency of granular policy controls down to on-prem and private cloud assets. Britive SaaS platform uses MQTT protocol to communicate with Britive Access broker connectors deployed on-prem to broker privileged access needs for any Window, Linux, databases or NFV devices.
• Benefit:?This feature helps streamline privileged access across your cloud and off-cloud environments by providing temporary, role-based access that can be easily monitored and revoked in a centralized approach, thereby optimizing operations and reducing the risk associated with fragmented access management.

5. Audit Logs and Reporting

• Description:?Comprehensive audit logs and reporting capabilities provide detailed visibility into all privileged access activities, enabling security teams to track who accessed what, when, and why. These logs can easily be sent to SIEM and data posturing tools for proactive threat management. Britive own adaptive authorization keeps track of anomaly detected comparing to a normal day baseline and sending alerts via webhooks.
• Benefit:?These logs are crucial for meeting regulatory compliance requirements, performing security audits, and conducting forensic investigations in the event of a security incident. Britive integrations with all identity eco-system tools make it easier for enterprises to realize true power of a modern identity cloud stack.

6. API Programmability – Meeting users where they are

• Description:?Britive is born in the cloud platform with programmability in mind. Its API-first approach enables seamless integration with existing IT and security tools, such as SIEMs, ITSMs, and DevOps pipelines. Britive also provides python based cli called ‘pybritive’ that makes it simple for developers, database admins and data scientists to incorporate permissions grants as part of their cli tools they are most comfortable with.
• Benefit:?API programmability allows for automated, customized workflows and integration into broader software development lifecycles and Identity ecosystem tools, enhancing operational flexibility and enabling a more proactive security posture.

7. Unifying and Standardizing Processes, Policies, and Controls Across Disparate Teams

• Description:?Britive unifies and standardizes processes, policies, and controls across fragmented, siloed teams within global, complex networks.
• Benefit:?Since people are central to any organization, Britive helps standardize the way teams operate, ensuring consistency and alignment in security practices across all departments and geographies. This standardization reduces confusion, minimizes the risk of misconfigurations, and enhances overall security posture by ensuring that everyone follows the same protocols.

8. Geo-Specific Policy Management

• Description:?Britive's capability to adjust policies granularly based on geographic location allows organizations to customize access controls in accordance with regional regulations and compliance requirements.
• Benefit:?As noted by Legal & General, this feature enables organizations to manage diverse compliance needs efficiently. For instance, a group in the EU adhering to GDPR may require specific controls, while another group in a different region could have entirely different access requirements. Britive makes it easy to set and enforce these distinct policies, ensuring compliance and security across global operations.

9. Vault and Secrets Manager

• Description:?Britive's Vault and Secrets Manager securely stores and manages sensitive credentials, secrets, and API keys across cloud environments, ensuring they are only accessible by authorized users and applications when needed.
• Benefit:?This feature helps organizations avoid the risks associated with hard-coded secrets or storing sensitive information in less secure locations. With Britive, life sciences companies can centrally manage secrets, automate their rotation, and enforce granular access controls, thereby reducing the risk of credential-based attacks and ensuring compliance with security best practices.

Conclusion and Benefits:

Implementing a unified Cloud Privileged Access Management (CPAM) solution like Britive brings multiple benefits to pharmaceutical and life sciences companies, beyond just enhancing security and compliance:

• Operational Efficiency and Simplicity:?Britive is true SaaS platform with centralized access controls that reduces the complexity of managing multiple systems, leading to lower administrative overhead, minimized human error, and more streamlined operations. Unlike traditional PAM tools, Britive uses permission brokering concept and does not require operationally expensive agents to be installed per device or administer network changes as environment grows.
• Enhanced Security Posture:?JIT access, zero trust principles, and real-time monitoring significantly reduce the risk of breaches and insider threats while simplifying access management workflows.
• Streamlined Compliance:?Consistent policy enforcement and comprehensive audit trails across all environments ensure regulatory compliance, saving time and reducing costs associated with audits.
• Protection of Intellectual Property:?Secure, dynamic access controls minimize the risk of unauthorized access to sensitive research and data while simplifying the management of these controls.
• Reduced Third-Party Risks:?Efficient management of third-party access ensures secure collaboration with vendors and partners, without the complexity of multiple tools or interfaces.
• Seamless Integration:?The ability to integrate easily with both cloud and on-premises systems ensures a smooth transition to a unified PAM strategy without disrupting existing workflows or requiring extensive retraining.
• Standardized Processes Across Global Teams:?Unifying and standardizing processes, policies, and controls helps maintain consistent security practices across fragmented teams, reducing complexity and improving security posture.
• Geo-Specific Controls for Compliance:?Granular policy management based on geographic location ensures that each region adheres to its specific regulatory requirements, enhancing compliance and minimizing risk.

?

Additional resources:

https://britive.com

https://docs.britive.com

https://github.com/britive/terraform-provider-britive

• Schedule a consultation with Britive Solutions architects for questions.

?