Modernize Your Directory Without Compromising Linux Security

January 29, 2025 Archit Lohokare

identity security linux

In today’s threat landscape, you’re at risk if you don’t have all your identities—human and machine—secured with the right level of intelligent privilege controls. And the risk is even more significant when identities and privileges on your mission-critical Linux servers, especially those that run critical workloads or have sensitive data, are managed in silos, separately from the rest of the infrastructure.

As the backbone of your enterprise IT infrastructure, Linux server security demands close attention. To help prevent attacks, it is critical to monitor access to them closely, reduce your identity attack surface and minimize privileges for all identities. However, Linux servers have some unique characteristics that make securing identities and privileges more difficult than usual.

Corporate environments universally use directories and identity providers (IdPs) like Microsoft Active Directory (AD), but Linux servers lack native support for integrating with them, especially for use cases that pertain to identity security. Enterprises bypass this obstacle using an AD bridging tool that connects Linux servers to Active Directory so users can authenticate into Linux machines with centrally managed accounts and groups. This allows organizations to streamline users’ access, authentication and authorization across all Linux environments.

But amid accelerating cloud adoption, as organizations strive to upgrade to modern, cloud-based directories to reinvent themselves, IT teams are at the crossroads of making that difficult choice between modernization and security. The reason? Linux servers natively don’t support cloud directories, and the legacy AD bridging solutions, often hosted on-premises, tie these servers to the on-premises AD.

This limitation forces security teams to resort to legacy identity and access management (IAM) tactics involving local and often shared accounts to delegate user access. Inevitably, these local accounts tend to possess very high levels of privileges and use sensitive credentials on Linux servers, turning these mission-critical machines into very powerful but highly vulnerable attack surfaces.

The critical question arises: Can you risk leaving your Linux servers behind to execute your organization’s cloud-first strategy?

Somewhere between the enterprise’s need to safeguard Linux servers and aspirations to embrace the cloud lies an unmet need for a directory-agnostic bridging solution rooted in identity security.

linux server bridging

Linux Servers or Sitting Ducks?

At a time when IT leaders around the world are most concerned about securing identities at scale, archaic, decentralized IAM processes and technologies on high-risk Linux servers can place them in a precarious position. Some of the most common security challenges include:

1. Identity and privilege sprawl: When your Linux servers don’t integrate with the directory, local (often root) accounts facilitate access. This lack of integration results in expanding privilege and credential sprawl, making them highly susceptible to identity-based attacks and impeding strategic identity security initiatives such as Zero Trust and role-based access management implementation.

2. Increasing admin burden: IT admins manually manage users, their access and entitlements across your Linux servers without centralized identity management. This practice increases their workload while introducing many risks associated with potential human errors, such as an overprovisioned identity.

3. Compliance complexities: When using local accounts, every user action is associated with that specific local account on a particular server, not with the centralized or enterprise identity of the user performing the action. As a result, it takes additional time and effort to correlate events across the entire Linux estate to prepare audit and compliance reports that are essential to pass IAM-specific compliance checks.

Since compromising Linux security should never be an option, cloud migration initiatives almost always take a back seat. This results in enterprises staying locked into legacy and often unmanageable directories, such as Microsoft AD, often at the cost of growing integration challenges and maintenance overheads.

CyberArk Identity Bridge: Modernize Your Linux IAM and Maximize Identity Security

CyberArk Identity Bridge is a directory-agnostic bridging, SaaS solution that lets you integrate your critical Linux servers with a cloud-based directory of your choice, helping extend strategic initiatives like Zero Trust, identity security and role-based least privilege delegation into high-risk Linux environments. Built into the CyberArk Endpoint Identity Security solution, powered by CyberArk Endpoint Privilege Manager (EPM), it maximizes risk reduction across your endpoints without disrupting your digital transformation plan.

Here’s an overview of how CyberArk Identity Bridge helps in modernizing your directory without compromising Linux security:

  • Centralize IAM: Reduce the identity attack surface by enabling centrally managed accounts and privileges for authentication and authorization into Linux environments. Centrally control user access and entitlements, thus reducing administrative burden and automating identity orchestration to prevent manual errors.
  • Accelerate IAM modernization: Easily migrate to a cloud-based directory of your choice while continuing to support your existing directory. Deploy CyberArk Identity Bridge easily to help prevent business disruption while securing your journey to the cloud.
  • Implement strong and modern user authentication: Use strong, phishing-resistant authentication to Linux servers based on location, IP and user history with adaptive multi-factor authentication (MFA). Passwordless options are also available to help prevent credential theft and enhance the user experience.
  • Bolster identity security posture: Extend a Zero Trust architecture to your high-risk Linux environment with CyberArk Endpoint Identity Security and other identity security capabilities. Centralized management of access, authentications and authorizations for all users helps ensure effective risk reduction, improved visibility and enhanced cyber resilience in Linux environments.
  • Streamline compliance: Enable centralized management for all identities, which can eliminate privilege sprawl and demonstrate Zero Trust alignment on Linux servers. In doing so, organizations can significantly boost their compliance readiness required to meet NIST CSF 2.0, ISO 27001 and other requirements.

Balance Cloud Migration and Identity Security

Cloud migration is the key to staying relevant. However, your digital transformation journey will likely become counterproductive without a strong identity security strategy shielding your critical resources.

With CyberArk Identity Bridge, you can successfully move past legacy directories and streamline IAM on Linux servers through an integrated identity security strategy delivered through a single, comprehensive platform—CyberArk Endpoint Identity Security.

You can read my latest whitepaper on this topic to learn more.

Archit Lohokare is the general manager of Workforce and Endpoint Identity Security Solutions at CyberArk.

Previous Article
The Evolution of Fraud: How Deepfake Technology is Changing Cybercrime
The Evolution of Fraud: How Deepfake Technology is Changing Cybercrime

As a former black hat hacker, social engineering and phishing concepts are not new to me. I have used these...

Next Article
Machine Identities Elevated: Insights from the White House Executive Order
Machine Identities Elevated: Insights from the White House Executive Order

Impact of the Executive Order on Software Supply Chain Security, AI and Machine Identities Cybersecurity is...