Privileged Access for Modern Infrastructure: The Top Four Challenges

As organizations have transitioned from legacy IT infrastructure to cloud-native, ephemeral modern infrastructure, the needs of how privileged access is handled have shifted, too. Modern infrastructure presents unique challenges that legacy Privileged Access Management (PAM) tools, originally architected for more static environments, weren’t designed to handle.

In this post, we explore why characteristics of modern infrastructure require a modern approach to PAM. We will discuss four common challenges and how organizations can overcome them using Teleport.

1. Risk introduced by credentials and access sprawl

Modern infrastructure is complex, with layers of technology with different access paths, often secured by secrets. However, credentials can introduce risk – especially in environments with many users. Static credentials (like SSH keys, API tokens, passwords, encryption keys, and other secrets) are increasingly the source of data breaches and compromises. Why?

• Static credentials: Long-lived passwords or keys do not automatically expire, leaving them vulnerable to unauthorized access if leaked or stolen.
• Human error risks: Credential management relies on regular updates and secure storage, increasing the chances of accidental exposure or mismanagement.
• Complex rotation process: Regularly rotating passwords or keys is necessary but labor-intensive, often leading to delays or incomplete rotations.
• Storage vulnerabilities: Credentials stored in code, configuration files, or shared storage can be inadvertently exposed, posing significant security risks.
• Scalability limitations: In environments with many users and resources, managing and securing static credentials becomes increasingly challenging, with a greater chance of oversight or errors.

Legacy PAM solutions rely heavily on credential management, using static passwords or long-lived credentials to govern access.

Teleport’s solution: Eliminate credentials and leverage cryptographic identity

With Teleport, access is governed by cryptographic identity for all users, machines, and resources, enabling engineers and machines to access needed resources with biometric or TPM-based authentication. By eliminating credentials and employing multi-factor authentication (MFA) on a per-session basis, Teleport eliminates an attack surface targeted by threat actors, further protecting infrastructure and data from identity compromise. The use of ephemeral certificates that are automatically issued and managed enables just-in-time access without having to handle credentials.

Features like Device Trust – where only trusted devices may access designated resources – and advanced session moderation provide your security teams with additional access control and response options to prevent threats.

2. Highly scalable, ephemeral infrastructure

Modern infrastructure is dynamic and ephemeral, with resources scaling up or down as needed – often automatically, and without human intervention. Securing access across these environments can be complex and resource intensive.

• Ephemeral resources: Resources like containers or virtual machines can appear and disappear rapidly, making it challenging to maintain consistent access policies.
• Frequent scaling: As demand fluctuates, infrastructure scales up or down, requiring constant updates to access controls to ensure authorized users can reach new resources securely.
• High complexity: With resources spread across multiple environments (e.g., cloud, on-premises, hybrid setups), coordinating access policies and configurations can be labor-intensive.
• Manual management burden: Traditional access systems often require manual adjustments, adding overhead and increasing the risk of configuration errors.
• Visibility challenges: Keeping track of all active resources and who has access can be difficult, leading to potential blind spots or security gaps.

Legacy PAM tools were developed for static IT environments with fixed, on-premises servers and well-defined network perimeters. At the time, speed and automation were not top priorities – a stark contrast from today’s infrastructure demands.

Adapting legacy PAM solutions to modern demands is challenging, simply because these tools were not built with speed and automation in mind. Older PAM models rely on manual approval processes, offer limited automation opportunities, and do not integrate easily with modern infrastructure frameworks.

Teleport’s solution: Deliver unified, just-in-time access

Teleport provides a modern platform for secure infrastructure access that dynamically adjusts to highly scalable and ephemeral infrastructure – purpose-built to support today’s hybrid and infrastructure-as-code (IaC) environments.

This approach provides unified, dynamic access to resources as they are spun up or down, whether in cloud environments, containerized applications like Kubernetes, or other dynamic components. Further, by governing authorization with ephemeral certificates, Teleport ensures that access to resources is time-bound and automatically expires when the session ends, increasing your ability to scale consistent security across infrastructure while eliminating operational overhead.

3. Managing access across complex infrastructure

As organizations grow, their infrastructure grows and spans multiple platforms, resource types, and geographical locations – including on-premises and multi-cloud deployments. In this diverse environment, legacy PAM tools may be insufficient to maintain consistent policies and enforce access controls across newer tech stacks. Complex environments may lead to misconfigurations and limited visibility into access controls.

• Cross-platform complexity: Managing access across multiple platforms (on-premises, cloud, multi-cloud) requires separate configurations, complicating policy consistency.
• Diverse resource types: Different resource types, from databases to Kubernetes clusters, require specific access controls, which can lead to inconsistent security practices across the organization.
• Geographical distribution: With infrastructure spread across regions, enforcing and auditing consistent access policies globally becomes difficult and can lead to gaps.
• Misconfiguration risks: Multiple configurations increase the likelihood of errors or policy misalignments, creating potential security vulnerabilities.
• Limited access visibility: Tracking who has access to what becomes challenging, potentially leaving certain resources exposed without clear oversight.

Teleport’s solution: Unify access across multiple environments

Teleport unifies access control across diverse and complex infrastructures, allowing organizations to manage all access policies from a single, unified, and dynamic control point. This ensures access policies are applied consistently across all resources, whether they’re on-premises, in the cloud, or in multiple data centers.

Simplified user onboarding and offboarding allows administrators to easily control access based on identity, roles, and groups – and without having to manage separate configurations for each environment. Built-in role-based access control (RBAC) provides fine-grained permissions tailored to specific resources, and automated session recording and monitoring give teams a complete view of all access activity, simplifying compliance and streamlining forensic audits.

4. Limited compatibility with modern DevOps tools

In today’s agile environments, integration with DevOps tools is essential to maintain efficient workflows while enforcing security standards. These workflows are driven by automation and secure infrastructure access, and must be designed with both outcomes in mind. Legacy PAM solutions often lack the flexibility to integrate with modern DevOps toolchains, and may lack the automation capabilities required to support engineering workflows. This can create friction between security requirements and development objectives, including:

• Delayed access approvals: Traditional access models require manual approvals, creating bottlenecks that disrupt agile development timelines.
• Lack of automation: Modern DevOps relies on automated processes, while legacy PAM tools typically require manual configuration, making security compliance a time-consuming task.
• Risk of shadow IT: When access tools hinder productivity, developers may bypass PAM controls, introducing security risks and creating “shadow IT.”
• Limited tool compatibility: Legacy PAM often doesn’t support cloud-native tools like Kubernetes or infrastructure-as-code (IaC), resulting in fragmented security practices.

Teleport’s solution: Seamlessly integrate with DevOps workflows

Teleport integrates seamlessly with modern DevOps tools, aligning security with productivity goals. It embraces automation and actually increases developer productivity, supporting the tools and processes commonly used in agile environments including CI/CD pipelines, Kubernetes, and infrastructure-as-code (IaC) platforms. This allows security to be built directly into DevOps workflows without adding complexity or creating bottlenecks.

Just-in-time access provisioning and ephemeral certificates enable developers to access resources on-demand without needing to wait for security approvals or credentials. Support for Kubernetes clusters, databases, and cloud environments helps DevOps teams secure resources efficiently, fostering a balanced environment where both security and productivity thrive. Unified access control for both human and machine identities ensures a consistent approach to policy.

Teleport delivers access built for modern infrastructure

Teleport is a modern secure infrastructure access platform designed for today’s modern infrastructure, including servers, Kubernetes clusters, databases, cloud, Windows desktops, and web applications. By employing cryptographic identity and ephemeral certificates to govern privileges, Teleport minimizes security risks and removes the need for static credentials such as passwords, tokens, or API keys, and eliminates operational overhead of managing VPN or bastion host configurations.

DevOps, security, and infrastructure teams benefit from streamlined, identity-based policies that automate access control, reducing both operational overhead and security vulnerabilities. Teleport’s use of ephemeral certificates eliminates standing privileges and ensures authorization is grounded in the principle of least privileged access, is session-specific, and is automatically revoked when no longer needed.

Additionally, Teleport provides the robust visibility needed for compliance and audit through built-in session recording and audit logging, essential for meeting compliance standards like SOC 2, FedRAMP, PCI DSS 4.0, DORA, and more. Scalable and cloud-native, Teleport is tailored to the demands of modern infrastructure, allowing organizations to grow and adapt.

Conclusion

Modern infrastructure has changed privileged access requirements. Credentials and secrets leakage has increased the number of reported data breaches and compromises. Together, these factors require a change to how organizations secure access to their infrastructure.

By modernizing infrastructure access with solutions like Teleport, organizations can address the limitations of legacy PAM, achieve stronger security, improve compliance, and earn more efficient engineering outcomes and operational workflows.

Is your privileged access strategy ready for the complexities of modern, cloud-native infrastructure?

Download our white paper to discover the key challenges organizations face when scaling access across today’s infrastructure – and find out where traditional approaches to privileged access fall short.

Read white paper