Privilege Creep: The Hidden Security Risk You Can’t Ignore
Imagine rolling a snowball down a hill. At first, it’s pretty harmless. It’s just a handful of packed snow after all. But as it rolls downhill, it picks up more snow, growing larger and larger until it becomes an unstoppable force. This is what happens when employees gradually accumulate more network access than they need, and it’s called privilege creep.
Over time, as employees switch roles, take on new responsibilities, or simply hang onto outdated permissions, they accumulate more access than they need. It’s usually unintentional, but that extra access creates a bigger security risk. Like the snowball, the impact could be as destructive as an avalanche. If an account with excessive privileges gets compromised, the fallout could be disastrous.
So how does privilege creep happen, and more importantly, how can you stop it? Let’s dive in.
What is privilege creep?
Privilege creep, also called access creep, is when users gradually gain more access rights than are necessary for their roles. Organizations of all sizes deal with privilege creep and it often goes unnoticed. While you may trust your users to not misuse the access, and they may not even realize they have it, the more access a user has to the network, the greater the risk if their account gets compromised.
How does privilege creep happen?
Job changes within an organization
When an employee changes jobs internally or gets new responsibilities, their access requirements change too. They’ll get granted new privileges but might still retain old, unnecessary ones.
Credential sharing
Managers or other users can often be too generous with their credentials. Instead of going through the proper IT processes, teams share logins to keep projects moving without considering the security risks.
Temporary access becomes permanent
It’s not uncommon for an employee to gain temporary access for a project or to fill in for someone on leave. They get permission from IT and access is revoked after the necessary work has been done. Or that’s how it should happen. What’s not uncommon is temporary access not getting revoked when it should be and becoming permanent.
Offboarding
Accounts for employees who are no longer with the organization haven’t been deleted.
Outside consultant access
Consultants or auditors will typically demand higher access to privileged parts of your network. Think about when a company goes through a merger or acquisition. It makes sense for convenience. They need to review every part of the organization to ensure everything is above board and you don’t want to spend your time granting temporary access. But this is a major security issue. As more M&A occurs, cybercriminals are becoming aware of the access these outsiders get and have been making consultants and third parties an attractive target for cyberattacks.
What are the risks of privilege creep?
Security risks
Obviously, the biggest risk of privilege creep is security. The more users who have access to important information or vital software, the greater the chance a cybercriminal can move around an organization’s network undetected. If too many users have too much access, it could be difficult to trace the origin of potential security breaches.
But it’s not just outside forces to worry about. Insider threats can be just as destructive. There are of course intentional threats. Think of a malicious user who can access company information to undermine or sabotage their employers. But unintentional threats can be just as harmful. A negligent employee could fall for a phishing attack or install malicious software that spreads a virus through the network. Excessive privilege also increases the attack surface for ransomware and malware, giving these threats more pathways to infiltrate systems, escalate privileges, and cause widespread damage.
Non-security risks
Not all risks are security risks. Too much access could lead to inappropriate uses of privilege. You don’t want everyone in your organization to have access to confidential financial information or employee records. Don’t let someone’s curiosity get the best of them and see information they shouldn’t.
Additionally, excessive access can lead to operational inefficiencies. Employees might accidentally modify critical files, disrupt workflows, or make unauthorized changes that create confusion and slow down business processes.
Non-compliance
Granting too much access could get you in hot water with regulators. Regulatory and industry compliance frameworks, like HIPAA, GDPR, SOX, and FDDC are put into place to protect sensitive data. Not limiting access rights could lead to financial and legal consequences.
Privilege access management has also become a common requirement for cyber insurance. Without proper access management practices, you could pay higher insurance premiums or be denied coverage altogether.
How do you detect and prevent privilege creep?
Detection
The first step in preventing privilege creep is detecting it. Here are some common ways to discover privilege creep.
- Automated monitoring and alerts
Automation is a powerful tool in AI, and it can make detecting privilege creep a whole lot easier. Setting up automated monitoring can give you a real-time look at who has access to what and if their access rights match their needs. You can flag when a user gains unnecessary or excessive privileges based on predetermined criteria and send alerts if access permissions are changed outside standard processes. You can also identify dormant or old accounts with excessive privileges that need to be deactivated. - Regular access audits
Performing a company-wide privileged access audit will help uncover who has access to what and whether they need it. With this information, you can start revoking unnecessary access and put greater restrictions going forward.
Audits can be done along with automated monitoring and alerts but should be more thorough in their searches. And an annual audit isn’t enough. Access audits should be done at least quarterly for the entire company, and even monthly for high-risk environments. - Behavioral analytics and anomaly detection
Another practice that goes well with monitoring and alerts is behavioral analytics and anomaly detection. By tracking normal employee behavior, you can identify unusual access patterns or privilege escalations. You’ll identify when users access systems they don’t typically use or perform actions outside of their normal behavior. This can trigger further investigation to determine if it’s a threat or a false positive. If it’s a threat, you can take action to mitigate the damage. If it’s a false positive, you can determine how the user accessed the system, what they’re doing, and find out if further actions need to be taken. - User access reviews with department heads
Department heads and managers have a better idea of what access their employees need. Regular meetings with managers allow you to understand access needs per department and per employee. This ensures employees only have the access required to do their job, and nothing more. You can also provide structures for managers to review and approve/revoke permissions, instill proper security and access processes, and create accountability by involving leadership in access management decisions.
Prevention
Now that you know who has access to what, you can put better access management guardrails in place. Here are the best ways to put a stop to privilege creep.
- Enforce the principle of least privilege
We’ve mentioned this idea a few times already, but it can never be said enough. Users should only have access to the tools and resources they need to do their jobs and nothing more. This is achieved by following the principle of least privilege. Start with the bare minimum amount of access and give only what’s needed after that. - Install stronger identity verification
Just having access rights isn’t enough. Organizations need to ensure the people accessing their information are who they say they are. This can be done with multi-factor authentication (MFA). Whether it’s a code sent via text or email or a third-party verification app, adding an extra step for employees to verify their identity can be the thing that stops an attack from even starting.
- Implement role-based access control
Role-based access defines access rights for each role within an organization based on the specific tasks each one entails. This is a perfect way to solve access rights issues to the previously mentioned scenario of employees changing jobs within an organization. Once they’re assigned a new role in the system, their access rights are automatically updated.
This can also be used for departments within an organization. Marketing doesn’t need access to accounting information and vice versa. - User access request and review workflow
If access is given too freely, how access is approved and reviewed needs to change. This starts with a structured access request, review, and approval process. This can be done manually for each access request, especially for high-risk access, or set up automatically to review and approve or deny routine or common access requests. With structured access request processes, employees will follow formal procedures through IT instead of managers, ensuring the right access is given at the right time.
Better access workflows create a clear line of permission management, helps prevents users from accumulating access over time without oversight, gives permission access to the people familiar with your organization’s network, and keeps security risks in check. - Centralize user access management
As mentioned earlier, credential sharing is a common cause of privilege creep. To counter that, access management and the ability to grant access should be centralized. This is mostly done, and frankly should always be done, by IT as they have control of an organization’s network. - Invest in privilege access management (PAM) solutions
A privilege access management (PAM) solution is a powerful tool that can mitigate a lot of the common causes of privilege creep. With a PAM solution, you can manage access per user or by role, enforce least privilege, audit access rights across your organization, reduce credential sharing, and auto approve or deny for frictionless access management.
Keep your organization free from privilege creep
It’s easy for privilege creep to, well, creep up on you. Without the right solutions and practices in place, you can lose track of who has access rights to what, and you could be left with much bigger problems on your hands.
The best way to eliminate privilege creep? A PAM solution like ScreenConnect Privileged Access. Designed for maximum security with minimal complexity, it prioritizes control without sacrificing usability. Privileged Access seamlessly integrates with ScreenConnect agents, ConnectWise RMM and PSA, Slack, Teams, and VirusTotal for streamlined security and workflow automation. No need to build a whole new tech stack. And fast implementation gets your security up and running in no time.
Take control today. Start your free 14-day trial and kick privilege creep to the curb —before it becomes a bigger problem.