After nearly two decades in cybersecurity and more customer conversations than I can count, one thing’s clear: no matter the industry, every organization is dealing with compliance headaches. Finance, healthcare, retail – it doesn’t matter. If you’ve got users with access to systems, you’ve got audit controls to worry about. And most of the time, people have way more access than they actually need.
That’s where privileged access management (PAM) comes in. Not as a checkbox, but as a real solution to a real problem.
What are we up against?
Let’s be honest — the alphabet soup of regulations isn’t getting any smaller. Here's a quick rundown of the big ones:
- SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley): Focused on accurate financial reporting. Impacts everything from banks to tech companies.
- PCI DSS: All about protecting cardholder data. If you process payments, you’re on the hook.
- HIPAA: Protects patient health info. If you’re in healthcare or touch any PHI, this one’s yours.
- GDPR: Covers personal data of EU citizens. Doesn’t matter where you’re based — if you deal with EU data, you’re in.
- NIS2: Newer EU directive tightening up cybersecurity rules for critical sectors.
- ISO/IEC 27001: The go-to global standard for proving you take security seriously.
- FedRAMP / FISMA: U.S. federal agencies and contractors need to lock things down, too.
- CJIS, SOC 2, DORA, Cyber Essentials Plus... You get the idea. The list goes on.
Non-compliance? It gets ugly
Miss the mark on compliance, and it’s not just a slap on the wrist. The costs stack up fast:
- SOX: Multi-million-dollar fines, stock delisting, and potential exec fallout.
- PCI DSS: Up to $100K/month in penalties, plus the lovely surprise of losing card privileges.
- HIPAA: Civil and criminal penalties, and in some cases, licenses at risk.
- GDPR: Up to 4% of your global revenue. Enough said.
And that’s before we even talk about the PR disaster and customer trust damage.
A real example: PCI DSS and PAM
Take PCI DSS Requirement 2.1:
“Always change vendor-supplied defaults and remove or disable unnecessary default accounts before installing a system on the network.”
Sounds simple, right? In reality, it’s a pain — unless you’ve got a PAM solution doing the heavy lifting:
- Account discovery: Finds default and privileged accounts across systems.
- Auto-onboarding: Brings them into a secure vault, sets strong passwords, and rotates them regularly.
- Access control: Uses roles to determine who can access what, and when.
- Auditing: Every access and session is logged, so your audit trail is airtight.
Without PAM? You're doing this manually. It's slow, inconsistent, and easy to miss something. And in compliance, "I missed it" isn't a good excuse.
PAM = More than just passing the test
Yes, PAM helps with compliance. But it’s also your front line against insider threats, ransomware, and accidental privilege sprawl.
The right PAM tool:
- Limits lateral movement across your network
- Protects sensitive credentials
- Supports just-in-time access so no one hangs onto privileges they don’t need
- Gives you visibility when something goes sideways
It’s not about locking everything down — it’s about smart, secure control.
So why One Identity?
Plenty of vendors can help you check a box. One Identity helps you solve the whole problem.
We offer:
- Integrated PAM across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem
- Real-time session auditing
- Just-in-time access with auto-approval workflows
- Credential-less access to reduce risk
- Fast deployment — no 6-month project timelines
We’re built for organizations juggling regulations like SOX, PCI, HIPAA, ISO 27001, NIS2, and beyond.
Ask these before you pick a PAM
Choosing a PAM solution? Don’t just fall for buzzwords. Ask the real stuff:
- What specific audit challenges can this help me fix?
- Can it support our hybrid (or cloud-only) environment?
- How long does deployment actually take?
- Does it work the same across SaaS and on-prem?
- What’s the maintenance effort post-deploy?
- Can I get a proof of concept — quickly?
A good PAM vendor should make things easier, not add another headache.
Final word
If you’re trying to keep regulators happy, PAM isn’t optional. But it’s more than a compliance tool — it’s a security strategy. The right solution doesn’t just help you pass audits. It gives you control, visibility and peace of mind.
Want to see how One Identity helps you do all that — and stay ahead of the next compliance curveball? Let’s talk.
