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In today’s rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape, admin portals are the gateways to your organization. As such, they are prime targets for attackers looking to exploit vulnerabilities for financial gain, data theft, or operational disruption. Organizations that fail to secure these portals risk breaches, regulatory fines, and reputational damage.
This blog leverages the 4-3-2-1 framework to explain why admin portal access security matters and how JumpCloud helps protect your most privileged resource with a single identity of users with admin roles.
4 Reasons Admin Portal Security is Critical
Admin Portals Are the Keys to the Kingdom
Admin portals provide privileged access to an organization’s most sensitive systems like identities, devices, emails, and more. A compromise can have catastrophic consequences, leading to brand and reputation damage. In the wrong hands, an admin role can be used to manipulate systems, steal valuable data, or disrupt operations entirely. Protecting the admin portal is crucial to safeguarding the entire organization’s security posture.
Note: Fact: 74% of breaches involve credential or privilege misuse of human accounts as users and admins (Verizon DBIR, 2023).
Credential Compromise Is the Top Attack Vector
Weak or stolen credentials are the leading cause of data breaches across industries. Admin portals, in particular, are high-value targets for attackers, as they provide unrestricted access to sensitive systems and critical infrastructure. Phishing, brute-force attacks, and credential stuffing are just a few methods attackers use to escalate privileges, bypass security controls, and cause widespread damage.
Protecting these accounts with a strong authentication method as a second factor, alongside password as the first factor, is essential for reducing the risk of breaches.
Note: Fact: 19% of breaches stem from credential compromise, costing an average of $4.5 million per incident (IBM, 2023).
Orphaned Admin Accounts Are a Hidden Threat
Orphaned admin accounts if left active after an employee leaves the company or changes roles, pose a significant security risk. These accounts often remain unnoticed and unmonitored, creating potential entry points for malicious actors to gain unauthorized access, bypassing controls that would normally prevent them.
This risk is particularly high when admin roles are not tied to a centralized user identity management system, leading to unrevoked access even after an employee is no longer with the company.
Note: Fact: 58% of organizations experienced breaches due to orphaned accounts (Ponemon Institute).
Compliance Demands Tight Admin Controls
Many industries are governed by strict regulatory frameworks such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS, which require organizations to implement robust security controls around admin access. Failure to enforce strong admin access policies such as MFA and role-based access controls can lead to regulatory penalties, legal consequences, and a loss of customer trust.
Additionally, maintaining detailed audit logs and tracking admin activities is a key compliance requirement, ensuring that any unusual or unauthorized access can be detected and investigated promptly.
Note: Fact: Non-compliance costs businesses an average of $14.82 million annually (Global Data Protection Compliance).
3 Ways JumpCloud Elevates Security
Single Identity Management
Admin roles, when tied directly to a user’s primary identity, offer several advantages such as centralized identity management and reducing credential or MFA fatigue associated with maintaining separate user and admin accounts.
JumpCloud’s ability to create admin roles from existing users ensures that when employees leave or change roles, their admin access is automatically revoked, preventing orphaned admin accounts.
Additionally, when a user with an admin role needs to access the admin portal, they can authenticate using their primary credentials, with a step-up MFA to ensure secure access to the highly privileged resource.
High authentication assurance MFA factors to counter modern attacks
Cyber adversaries are evolving their tactics, using phishing, man-in-the-middle attacks, and token theft to bypass traditional MFA methods.
With JumpCloud, admins can configure phishing resistant passwordless MFA methods for users with admin roles and secure the admin portal with JumpCloud Go or WebAuthn-based (FIDO2) device authenticators or hardware security keys. This offers advanced, secure access protection, thus ensuring credentials alone are not enough to access the “keys to the kingdom.”
Always-On MFA for secure access to admin portal
Always-on MFA is essential to safeguard critical systems like the admin portal. This continuous layer of authentication from JumpCloud ensures that only verified users with admin roles are granted access using advanced MFA methods every time they access a sensitive and privileged resource like the admin portal.
2 Real-World Outcomes You’ll Achieve
Streamlined Security Across the Organization
Simplify and secure identity lifecycle management with centralized control, streamlined access, a high level of security for JumpCloud Admin Portal; plus you can ensure no orphaned admin accounts are left behind, reducing the risk of breaches.
Regulatory Compliance Made Simple
Detailed audit logs traceable to the user and their actions based on roles, and always-on MFA help you meet compliance requirements while reducing potential penalties for non-compliance.
1 Action to Take Today
Admin Portal security is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity.
Organizations must adopt a proactive approach to securing their most privileged accounts. The stakes are high – one breach can lead to financial losses, operational disruptions, and lasting reputational damage.
As Super Admins (Administrators with Billing) of your organization, it is essential that you manage your admins from existing users and secure their access to the JumpCloud Admin portal right away. JumpCloud’s robust phishing resistant JumpCloud Go, WebAuthn-based device authenticators, hardware security keys, and JumpCloud Protect are all native, fully-integrated MFA methods that you can leverage to do so.
Learn more to protect what matters most. Secure your JumpCloud Admin Portal today.If you are new to JumpCloud and interested as an IT admin, Sign up for a free demo today to explore the JumpCloud platform offerings and start managing your entire IT infrastructure of devices and identity, efficiently from one console. You can also experience our guided simulations.
