CyberArk Privileged Access Manager Reviews

CyberArk's Privileged Access Management solution covers a whole range of features, like privileged web access, private vault, privileged session manager rights for a session in isolation, privileged threat analytics for analytics, and private sessions. We also use CyberArk's Application Access Manager, which includes their credential providers, such as agents and run servers. Then there is a central credential provider, which is API-based credential retrieval, and DAP or Conjur. This is more of a DevOps model for credential provisioning. We also have the Central Policy Manager, which rotates the credentials associated with unprivileged or servers accounts. It's a huge environment. 

Those are all the different functions we use. We initially purchased CyberArk for privileged access manager and session isolation of privileged users. By privileged users, I mean main admins, global admins, and preps like Azure or Office 365. Our initial use case was to manage those users who could drastically impact the environment if their credentials were compromised.

After we purchased the product, we had a third party on it. They suggested we also leverage CyberArk as part of the platform for managing service accounts, i.e. go out and proactively rotate credentials that are running or ordering services. That's another kind of big use case that we started implementing a couple of years. It's long work. It is tough to do, there's a lot of cases where it just doesn't work right, but overall it's been pretty valuable.

From a security perspective, CyberArk PAM gives us a lot of control and visibility into what our privileged users are doing. In terms of securing our cloud-native apps, we're just getting into deploying things to Azure, AWS, etc., and DAP brings a lot of value to that because it is cloud-agnostic credential retrieval. Azure has their key vaults, and AWS has their version if you are a multi-cloud solution. CyberArk's Secrets Manager, or DAP, brings a lot of value because you only have to learn how to integrate your apps with one solution that can be deployed across multiple clouds. 

I will say that CyberArk is struggling with some of the cloud integrations. For instance, Azure has a native identity solution, and Microsoft keeps causing issues with their ability to identify the hosts calling back. Some cloud providers are trying to lock CyberArk and other tools out of their environment and force you to use their native one. With that said, I don't use the other functions. I don't use the containerization Kubernetes integration or anything like that. We're not at that point yet. One of my significant concerns about investing a lot of time in CyberArk Conjur or DAP solution is that Microsoft seems to be trying to push them out of that space, and if they do that, then all of that work is null and void.

In our initial use case, we found CyberArk's privileged session management functionality to be incredibly flexible. It's challenging to write these plug-ins, but if you have somebody with a development background, you can write all sorts of custom connections to support different functional applications. We've written over a hundred custom connectors ourselves that allow us to do all types of privileged session management for various applications. On top of that, the rest of the API-based central credential providers allow us to get away from credentials that may be hard-coded in the script or some application. 

CyberArk's web console isn't in a great state. Over the last three years, if not more, it has been transitioning from what they call the "classic UI" to its modern interface. However, there are a lot of features that you can only use in the classic interface. Hence, each version seems to put more makeup on the modern interface, but all of the complex functionality you need is still in the classic UI. 

I'm not sure they've figured out how to transition, and they're kind of in a weird state. So, while CyberArk has made strides, the web interface is painful, particularly as an administrator, because you have to bounce between these different user interfaces. It is an incredibly complex solution that requires at least a dedicated employee or more to maintain it, support it, and understand it thoroughly. If you don't have that, it's just not the right solution for you because it is very complicated. 

Many of the infrastructure folks who use the product dislike it because it complicates their workflow. They get a little less control, and they have to go through a specific solution. It proactively logs in for them, which obfuscates some of the issues that they may be troubleshooting. And I think some of the consumers aren't big fans of the product. Also, I feel that in the last year or so, CyberArk has been pushing very hard for customers to go to their cloud solution. It doesn't have the same flexibility as the on-premise version, which is problematic because that's where I see a lot of value in the solution.

I've been using CyberArk PAM for about four years now.

CyberArk support isn't the worst, but it's certainly not the best. I'd give it a six out of 10. They were responsive. After you submit a ticket, you get the typical response. You gather all the logs and send them, and then they do some analysis. They typically send you back to get more specific logs, so it's a standard support experience. I would not say it's great, but it is not terrible either.

Overall, as a partner in our digital transformation, CyberArk has been great. The technology adds a lot of value, but they're also very much engaged and concerned. The customer success manager very much wants to make sure we're getting value out of the tool. I guess my only concern there is that they are pushing very heavily for customers to switch to their new cloud solutions that may or may not fit our needs or expectations. I am worried that they're going to push even harder. For example, CyberArk might start offering features only available in the cloud solution that would make our future somewhat tenuous depending on what's going on. So my only hangup is that they're pushing cloud solutions that I don't think are very mature yet.

Neutral

The environment's architecture is very complex, depending on your use cases, and I'm talking about CyberArk as a whole. Their past solution — their AM solution — and all of the other solutions bundled together are straightforward, and it all needs to work together. Depending on your use case and the connected components you need to have or build, you must learn a lot. So, it's not as simple a thing to deploy — at least on-premise. It isn't straightforward. Our environment comprises 20 to 30 servers that we had to spin up and connect. Disaster recovery has to be thoroughly vetted, discussed, and documented because as you onboard and manage those privileged accounts, you need a way to get to them if something goes wrong.

It took about a month to get the product running and several months to onboard users. And when we start talking about Application Access Manager, that's ongoing, and I think that'll probably be ongoing for a very long time. We were targeting our specific use cases, so we started with interactive users. The whole idea was to restrict, manage, and monitor those interactive users. Our rollout proceeded from the most privileged users to the less privileged users. Then we started targeting service accounts and that kind of stuff. So it was a phased approach from highest risk to lowest risk to lower risk.

CyberArk PAM requires a lot of maintenance. Right now, we have about one and a half people, but I would say we need to add several more people to do a better job and add a lot of functionality. It requires a lot of maintenance and monitoring. They've relied on many different Microsoft features to secure the privileged session manager. It requires a lot of tuning, monitoring, and managing those solutions. They use AppLocker to restrict and isolate these running sessions, and AppLocker breaks all the time, so you have to go in and troubleshoot why it's broken and tweak it. That could mean adding a new rule or updating an application. It is a lot of maintenance, depending on your use case. But then again, we have gone very hard into privileged session management and developed over a hundred custom connectors. Another customer might deploy RDP and call it a day, drastically reducing maintenance.

If you ask me the ROI, I'm not sure I could give you an exact number. Security tools are pretty tricky when it comes to that. But if you're adopting a risk-based approach, this substantially reduces risk. It brought a lot of visibility and allowed us to monitor all of our privileged users, so it is valuable from the perspective of KPI, modern solutions, and risk reduction. If we were to score this on an internal risk review, our previous risk would rank four out of five, and we've lowered this to a low severity risk.

CyberArk had just changed switched their licensing model to perpetual licenses when we purchased, including the whole PAM Suite. Before we bought it, they were licensing each function individually, which got complicated and very expensive. When we decided to buy it, it was much more straightforward and still quite expensive, but it brings a lot of value and risk reduction to the organization. 

In the last year or so, it's my understanding that they have switched from a perpetual licensing model to pushing companies to a subscription-based model. I have not dealt with this yet, so I'm not sure my feedback on licensing would be too valuable because they've moved away from the license type we purchased.

This was our first foray into the PAM space. We did a proof of concept evaluating three different solutions, so CyberArk was the clear winner. I don't want to speak ill of any other solutions, but I will say that CyberArk's architecture was much more secure. Other competing solutions may leverage an agent that is installed on your local machine and runs your privileged applications locally, leaving a lot to be desired from a security perspective. 

CyberArk uses remote desktop gateways similar to Microsoft's RDS functionality, and it abstracts that privileged application from your workstation. So even if you're compromised, a malicious actor on your laptop or workstation would not be able to get to that privileged application. This was very valuable to us. Other solutions did not have that functionality.

As it stands today, I would rate CyberArk PAM nine out of 10. However, I'm concerned about the future of the platform. While I've had nothing but great experiences so far, I have concerns about how they've been pushing that cloud solution in the last year and a half. I feel like they're going to pressure us to move to the cloud even though they're not mature enough in the cloud. 

Rather than create a cloud-native version, they've migrated their on-premise solution to the cloud, but they don't allow cloud customers to access the backend, which I recommend all the time as an on-premise user. Instead, you have to submit a support ticket and have their support do things on your behalf, which delays your ability to work with the tool. Furthermore, they may not be willing to make the modifications you want because it would affect their ability to impact the solution consistently. CyberArk designed the on-premise version to be incredibly flexible, and I have never found a use case where I can't do the work I want to do. Their cloud model discards a lot of that flexibility, which is where I see a lot of value, so I have concerns about the future of the tool.

Also, I'd like to point out that service account management is incredibly hard, particularly in a company that's been around for a while. Any company looking to adopt service account management needs to know that it's not as easy as vendors make it sound. Many things don't work right out of the box, so the most important lesson we've learned is to calibrate the expectations of senior management when it comes to service account management because it is a lot harder than anybody thinks. You're likely to break things in the process of trying to manage these accounts. 

The main use case is the protection of privileged accounts. We also use it for multi-factor authentication and single sign-on.

Now we feel assured that all our privileged accounts are well protected. Our admins don't know passwords and don't enter them manually. This eliminates the risk of interception and account hijacking.

First of all, CyberArk offers great flexibility. Throughout our years of experience, we haven't found any system that we couldn't connect with CyberArk. We have many web management consoles, and it's no problem to connect to them using custom connectors.

Moreover, it's a highly customizable solution. If you know how to do it, you can customize it as you want.

There is room for improvement in the pricing model. From a technical point of view, there are no issues. Support could be faster, though. We have mentioned that better support from CyberArk would be beneficial.

So, support could be faster, and pricing can be improved.

We have been using it for our needs and sharing it for over ten years. Currently, we use version 12.

It is a very stable solution. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. If you can read the manual and avoid making mistakes, it's very stable.

It is an extremely scalable solution. I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. In our organization, there are ten CyberArk users; they all are system administrators. 

The customer service and support could be better. The response time could be better. 

Neutral

I would rate my experience with the initial setup a four out of ten, one being difficult and ten being easy. It's a modular system. To run CyberArk, you need to deploy several different services, set them up, and configure the interactions. It's not a solution in one box.

The initial setup is not very complex, but I would say it's not very simple, either.

We have deployed CyberArk in both environments. We have several working calls in the cloud and some parts on-premises. The initial deployment takes about two days. 

Our main technical task was to reduce security risks, which we accomplished with CyberArk.

I would rate CyberArk's pricing a nine out of ten, with one being cheap and ten being expensive. It's one of the most expensive solutions in the market, but it's worth it.

I would suggest finding a qualified partner. Don't try to install and configure it on your own. Instead, seek a certified CyberArk partner. It will save a lot of time and stress.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. It's very good, but there are still areas for improvement, like any other product. 

I'm a security solutions architect. I design solutions and hand them over to the client once they're implemented. We educate the users on how the solution works or turn it over to our managed services department

CyberArk PAM is an identity management solution used to manage privileged accounts on domains and local servers, including admin accounts in Windows environments and root users in Unix. 

With CyberArk, you can be fully confident that your existing accounts are secure. You will be 100 percent secure against attacks if you have all the right policies in place.

PAM could be more user-friendly and CyberArk could update the documentation to include more real-world examples. You have to learn it yourself through trial and error. In particular, the online documentation should have more information about troubleshooting.

I have used CyberArk PAM for two years. 

CyberArk PAM is stable.

CyberArk PAM is scalable. Managing 80,000 accounts is almost as easy as managing a thousand. 

CyberArk has a solid community. It's easy to get support and feedback from the forums. However, it can be difficult to access official technical support if you don't have a CyberArk certification because they have a process to limit unnecessary calls. You get excellent support once you're certified. 

Deploying CyberARK is complicated, but it is relatively easy for me because I have excellent scripts for implementing the prerequisites. It might be challenging for the average end user. It would be ideal to educate them in a demo environment because hard to explain this to a user without them. I would need to build an environment to show them. A simulated lab environment is one thing CyberArk PAM lacks.

We set up the prerequisites and discover the privileged accounts in the environment. CyberArk has a tool that scans the servers and detects accounts. This works best in a Microsoft environment. It's more difficult without Active Directory because you have to rely on the information the customer provides. You can begin the onboarding process once you've identified the accounts. 

It takes a month to set up the prerequisites and two or three days to install CyberArk PAM. Once it is deployed, it takes eight months to a year to tie up some loose ends. You may need to identify some accounts that you missed. The total time depends on the size and complexity of the user's environment. If you've configured everything correctly, it's simple to maintain. 

The ROI for CyberArk PAM is difficult to measure because the benefit is a reduction in risk. If CyberArk can eliminate most of the customer's security risks, then it's worth what they paid. 

CyberArk isn't cheap, but it's the best. You have to pay for quality. 

I rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager 10 out of 10. CyberArk is the leader in Gartner's quadrant. I tell my customers that they need to be 100 percent secure—99 percent isn't good enough. The top hackers will exploit that 1 percent hole, and you're finished. You need 100 percent, or else you're wasting your money.  

The concern on our end was separating the components, including the password storage component, and having everything completely separated. 

The scalability is very easy.

The most valuable aspect was being to be able to manage it through multiple mediums. We can manage it through its command line interface, web view, and directly logging into the digital environment with permission. You have multiple mediums. You don't have to give direct access to the world every time you want to limit what admins should do and what they should not do.

CyberArk has the biggest number of features available when you compare it to other PAN solutions like BeyondTrust, Thycotic, and Delinea. They tend to have a lot of separate components.

Performance-wise, it is excellent. 

The components of their web view, policy manager, and session manager, most of them are separated. We need something which can unify those components into a single appliance. Sometimes the infrastructure team is hesitant to provide more resources. 

They have a lot of out-of-the-box integrations with a lot of other products. However, I would want them to bring on some kind of similar platform. If they can bring up the SSO on-prem, that would be ideal, as they don't have those things on-premises. They only provide that for the cloud. If they can do that, it would actually help a lot of us and keep us from trying to acquire multiple technologies for solutions.

I've used the solution for six or seven years at this point. 

We are very stringent on the performance metrics and would rate the solution very high. It's stable. 

We found that scalability was much easier in CyberArk. In BeyondTrust, scalability required purchasing extra virtual machines every time we wanted to scale it up. However, in CyberArk, we don't need to purchase extra components. It comes along with the line.

Currently, we have around 78 to 80 admins, and there are around 200 underlying accounts. 

We previously used BeyondTrust.

I haven't compared it to Thycotic yet, however, from what I have read, it looks like CyberArk is better. I've also looked into Delinea.

We are reselling the solution to customers.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. It's quite a good product.

We have clients that ask us to implement CyberArk PAM. There are two kinds:

1. Greenfield installation and setup. 
2. They already have CyberArk and want to extend their usage to protect different types of accounts and passwords.

CyberArk PAM protects privileged accounts and passwords. Privileged account means that those accounts have particular authorization that can span all the features of the system. For example, usually on network devices, they come out out-of-the-box with administrator accounts. Windows has an administrator account built-in so you need to protect that. Also, Active Directory has some accounts, like domain administrators, who can do whatever on the platform. These accounts are used for administration.

CyberArk stores and rotates the password/credential. They can rotate SSH keys as well. This protects the attack surface. By way of CyberArk, you can allow sessions, isolation, and recording. The main aim is to protect privileged accounts and their credentials.

I started with version 9.7, and now I am working with version 10.10, but the latest version is 12.

The automatic change of the password and Privileged Session Manager (PSM) are the most valuable features. With Privileged Session Manager, you can control the password management in a centralized way. You can activate these features in a session; the session isolation and recording. You apply the full intermediation principle. So, you must pass through CyberArk PAM to get access to the target system. You don't need to know the password, and everything that you do is registered and auditable. In this case, no one gets to touch the password directly. Also, you can implement detection and response behavior in case of a breach.

With CyberArk, you have a centralized store. With Privileged Session Manager, you can just look by the browser, looking through the name of the account, the name of the system, and the host name. In this case, you get the password and can then get through. Therefore, it is easier to get access to the system because it is easier to search the system for what you want using the user interface/browser of CyberArk. You also have an auditable action because the password is unknown to the administrator.

Some aspects of the administration need improvement, though they have recently made improvements to the API. However, the management with the interface and configuration are not so user-friendly. It has not changed much during all the years that CyberArk has been on the market. The management part, like platform management as well as PSM connectors definition and management, could be improved, even if it has already been done with the API.

Onboarding is always a difficult path for every PAM solution. It is not immediate.

We have been using it for six years, usually in delivery projects.

The stability is very good. There are no problems with it.

It has good scalability. Though, because the architecture is modular, you must plan a bit. In terms of performance, it is very scalable, but you need to pay attention to the architecture because it is not like having Kubernetes that moves laterally. While you can deploy it in a second, you need to be careful. 

They have a good response time. 

Sometimes, on the development side, for some components, it does not respond for PSM connectors and CPM plugins. They don't tend to take responsibility for those. While clients tend to develop some PSM connector and CPM plugin, I would like a more flexible response on these types of issues being raised. Because while I am developing those components, I am developing on their product.

Positive

We had clients who had quite a lot of SAP systems, something like 900. At first, their change management practice, i.e., the changing of the administrators' passwords was not so frequent, e.g., once a year instead of once a month or every two months. Their password management was usually done by storing those passwords on an Excel. Therefore, if they needed to connect to a system, they had to access the Excel file to find the machine and accounts to then receive the passwords for access to the system. This was unwieldy since they needed to look through an Excel spreadsheet with more than 900 entries. This is also not very secure since you have an Excel file with a clear password on your workstation. 

It was a bit complex because the architecture is complex. At the same time, this is also an advantage in relation to other competitors in the market because CyberArk's architecture is inherently secure. So, while it is a bit more complex to set up initially, it is necessary for reaching the security that other solutions do not give you.

The installation can easily be done. It is the architecture part that is complex, possibly because you need to size the machines. 

It depends greatly on the project. Usually, the best approach is a modular one. You start with a set of users, then move on to expanding the solution with size in mind. 

CyberArk's architecture is peculiar. It is the most secure on the market because they have a hard-end computer out of the domain that stores passwords with multiple cryptography. Then, there are the default components that dialogue with Password Vaults. Only CyberArk has this. The other solutions usually give you an encrypted database on an appliance, and this is a very different scenario. Therefore, CyberArk has an inherently secure architecture.

Broadcom PAM is not as stable versus CyberArk. 

Plan wisely and you will have a very good product. The approach should be modular and step by step. Start with the UNIX administrators, network device administrator, Windows administrator, and Active Directory administrator, then move onto more complex scenarios, like web server administrators, sub-administrators, etc. 

I would rate CyberArk PAM as nine out of 10. It could be more manageable.

We have the identity provider for all the authentication processes. However, sometimes, we need access to different applications for customers or clients that are not integrated into the identity provider. For these, we need to store a password to gain access. For example, we use the CyberArk Password Vault for third-party services. This vault needs to be shared with many people in our company. 

This allows us to store passwords and create privileged access for some users without them needing to know the password. The system inputs the password into the endpoint URLs they use for authentication, but the users never see the password. This is crucial because people may leave the company, posing a high risk. If we had integrated it into the identity provider, we would have policies for active directory users but not for users outside the company.

For example, our development teams need to connect to databases, systems, and cloud services during development. The developers don’t get access to third-party services. We use the solution to manage this access. The application being developed and deployed integrates with CyberArk Password Vault services.

The main challenge was integrating with in-house IT and business applications, which are not standard. We needed to create special updates for that kind of integration.

I have been working with the product for three to four years. 

The solution is 99 percent scalable. 

Sometimes, support is not easy because you need to share the company's architecture. Maybe they are on time, but they don't understand the specifics we're talking about. Communication can be an issue, especially when speaking with people whose first language isn't English. There can be difficulties with understanding and making sense of conversations. So, outsourcing support can sometimes be challenging.

Neutral

CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault's deployment is complex. 

I have been working with the new services and don't see any additional issues at this hour. The key requirement is to have people who understand not only the tool but also the concepts and how to view it from an architectural perspective. 

One problem is that people may not know how to work with the tool, and another is that they don't understand the concepts. So, I think focusing on proof of concepts is good. For example, what I do at first is request information for identity providers and key management services.

I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten. 

We use the solution for cybersecurity and regulation.

The tool has safe vaults. We keep our passwords in the Vault. The tool’s recording feature is also valuable for us.

The tool needs to improve its usage and interface. They need to have a modern and useful interface. I want the product to improve its integration capabilities as well since some of the integration features do not work always.

I have been using the solution for five years.

The solution is a stable product.

The product is scalable. You can manage 100,000 scripts or 1000 secrets with the solution.

I would rate the tool’s support an eight out of ten. The tech support is good and not complex. You can escalate the problems easily.

If you do not have prior experience, then the tool’s setup is complex. It has a complex installation process. You need to do pre-configuration correctly. The deployment takes around two to three days to complete. One experienced person is enough for the deployment.

The product’s pricing is feasible for enterprise customers. The pricing is expensive for smaller businesses. You need to pay additional costs for service implementation and local support.

I would rate the product a ten out of ten. We recommend this product for enterprise customers. The tool’s pricing and operation are a problem for small customers. They need to opt for Software as a Service. Companies need to install this product since they have a lot of accounts and passwords.

The product is fairly priced. 

It's stable.

The solution is scalable. 

People are quite satisfied with the way it's working and the support we receive. 

The security is good. 

The interface is fine, although I'm not directly using it too much. 

We found the initial setup to be easy.

We would, of course, always prefer it if the pricing was cheaper. 

I've been using the solution for four or five years. 

It's stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It's reliable. It does not crash or freeze. 

We have more than 100 people on the solution right now. 20 to 30 are likely admins. 

The solution is scalable. We can increase licenses as needed. 

Technical support has been helpful and responsive. We are happy with their support. 

I can't speak to what solutions, if any, we used previously. 

The solution is very simple and straightforward. It's not complex at all. 

I know that CyberArk is now changing the pricing model to subscription-based. My understanding is renewals will be done on the subscription-based models. The pricing is reasonable. We pay annually.

The costs depend on if you were talking about the access of internal or external users. There is also an extra external fee for supporting the licensing.

We are end-users and customers. 

This is a stable, reasonably priced product. It has good security features as well. Since we received the renewal request, it's been working very well. 

I'd rate the product eight out of ten.