Top 8 Inadvertent Mistakes of Privileged Users and How to Prevent Them

The most dangerous security breaches don’t always start with hackers — they often start with human error. The threat becomes even greater with privileged users, whose actions can unintentionally create the biggest vulnerabilities in your IT environment. This article will tell you about the most common mistakes privileged users make, how they can undermine your organization’s cybersecurity, and the most effective ways to prevent them.

Key takeaways:

• Deploying a cybersecurity platform for insider risk management helps detect privileged user mistakes before they escalate into incidents.
• Privileged users pose higher security risks because their elevated access rights make their errors far more damaging than those of regular employees.
• Privileged credential sharing, weak passwords, and system misconfigurations can expose your organization to cyber threats.
• The incident at TalentHook demonstrates how a single human mistake can expose millions of sensitive records and negatively impact brand image.

Who are privileged users, and why do they require special attention?

Privileged users are individuals with access permissions that go beyond those of regular employees. They can configure systems, modify settings, install or remove software, and access sensitive or critical data that is essential to business operations. Examples of privileged users include system and network administrators, database managers, developers, and IT support engineers.

Privileged users are essential to your organization — they manage software updates, control user rights, and troubleshoot issues. Yet, their elevated permissions can also expose your organization to threats if misused or compromised. Therefore, the security risks posed by privileged users to your organization are significantly higher than those of regular users.

While mistakes by general users might lead to a lost file, a phishing click, or a local infection, a privileged user’s misstep can expose your entire organization to far more serious consequences.

The danger of privileged user mistakes

People make mistakes. The problem is that even inadvertent actions can cause serious damage to your organization. Insiders who unintentionally harm their organization are responsible for 55% of all reported insider threat cases, according to the 2025 Ponemon Cost of Insider Risks Report.

Privileged users’ Absentminded and negligent behavior by privileged users who access your organization’s critical resources can lead to negative consequences, such as:

• Loss or leaks of sensitive data
• Critical system crashes
• Operational disruptions

Thus, if one of your employees inadvertently causes a data breach, your company might lose not only sensitive data but also money and its positive reputation.Being aware of the most common mistakes made by privileged users can help you establish efficient privileged user management and avoid these negative consequences.

Top 8 common mistakes privileged users make

Some privileged users don’t know or don’t understand the true importance of following cybersecurity policies. Others break the rules to simplify or speed up routine processes without considering the consequences.

Let’s take a look at eight common mistakes privileged users make.

1. Mismanaging passwords

Passwords are the keys that protect your sensitive data, systems, and applications from intruders. There are many password management best practices, including using complex passwords and regularly updating them. However, while many people are aware of these best practices, few actually implement them.

Here are the five most common password management mistakes to watch for in your privileged users’ daily routines:

• Using default credentials. Some organizations may still use the word “admin” as both the login and password to the sysadmin account.
• Using weak passwords. Weak passwords are typically short (six characters or fewer) and easy to guess (such as names, birthdates, phone numbers, and so on). Poor passwords make your privileged accounts vulnerable to brute-force attacks.
• Using the same password for multiple accounts. If a reused password becomes compromised, attackers can also access all other accounts it was used for.
• Storing passwords in plain text. According to password storage best practices, keeping passwords in unencrypted text files is never acceptable. Someone gaining access to that file is often how large data breaches start.

Using non-expiring passwords. Using the same password for a long time increases the risk of privileged account compromise. Password management best practices recommend rotating passwords every three to six months.

2. Disabling or not using MFA

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is the cybersecurity gold standard. This technology protects your sensitive data from unauthorized access much better than passwords alone by adding more verification layers to the authentication process.

Cybercriminals can steal or guess a password, but they can’t easily trick MFA mechanisms.

The problem is that sometimes privileged users can disable additional authentication measures. They might not want to use MFA because they don’t understand its true importance or feel like waiting for a verification passcode is a waste of time.

3. Sharing privileged accounts

Ideally, privileges should be granted only to those who need them, when they need them, and only after your cybersecurity officer’s approval. But in real life, colleagues often share privileged account credentials without a second thought.

Another common scenario is when a team shares one admin account to manage an application, website, or cloud storage service because creating an extra account would cost additional money.

When it comes to privileged user activity, visibility is essential. If you have two or more people using the same account, you can’t actually tell who did what. So if data is compromised or something stops functioning the way it should, you won’t be able to tell who is responsible.

4. Using admin accounts excessively

When people use privileged accounts more often than needed to do their job, it can increase your organization’s vulnerability. For example, an employee might stumble upon an email with malware attachments or a compromised website trying to launch a malicious script. If they do so while being logged in to an account with elevated access rights, the consequences can be severe.

It’s a common practice to distinguish privileged user accounts from regular accounts and never use privileged accounts to perform day-to-day tasks. That’s why employees in many companies have several accounts with different access permissions assigned to each. Even if you make this practice a part of your security policy, there’s a chance that privileged users will ignore or sabotage it.

5. Misconfiguring systems and services

A large share of privileged users are administrators. Admins who set up servers, databases, or network devices can make unintentional mistakes, especially under the pressure of tight deadlines. Even minor configuration errors can create serious gaps in your IT network security. 

Typical mistakes include leaving default settings enabled, exposing ports that shouldn’t be public, or assigning overly broad permissions to users. These mistakes can provide attackers with entry points to infiltrate your systems or gain access to sensitive data.

6. Skipping software updates

Keeping systems and applications up to date is one of the most effective ways to protect your organization from cyber threats. When admins delay or overlook software updates, they leave well-known security vulnerabilities open that attackers can exploit.

Even a short delay in applying updates can be enough to cause a breach, as hackers often scan for unpatched systems to break into the networks of the organizations they target.

7. Leaving privileged accounts unmanaged

Privileged users often may need to create new human and service accounts with elevated access, whether for testing, troubleshooting, or managing specific systems and applications. But in many cases, these accounts are never added to the central pool of monitored and managed privileged identities. Additionally, your infrastructure may contain unmanaged default and old privileged accounts that also pose a cybersecurity risk.

They remain invisible to oversight tools, untouched by access reviews, and excluded from password rotation policies. This creates dangerous blind spots in your organization’s cybersecurity, as attackers can exploit unmanaged and orphaned privileged accounts without your security team noticing.

8. Ignoring cybersecurity policies

No matter what rules you specify in your organization’s cybersecurity policy, you’re likely to find someone who disobeys them. People don’t follow these rules for different reasons:

• Ignorance — Some of your employees or subcontractors may be unaware of specific rules and recommendations. Sometimes, people don’t even know there’s a cybersecurity policy they should follow.
• Negligence — People may know the rules but not understand why following them is important.
• Inconvenience — Sometimes, people choose to ignore cybersecurity policies because following them slows down their work or complicates their daily tasks.

For instance, some users skirt the rules by using solutions or devices that the organization’s IT department has prohibited. These could include cloud services, file sharing applications, messengers, and devices that are outside of the organization’s ownership and control. Such solutions are called shadow IT.

Recognizing these mistakes is crucial, but seeing their consequences in reality can be even more eye-opening.

Real examples of how privileged user error leads to incidents

In this section, we’ll walk you through some examples of when privileged users’ mistakes led to cybersecurity incidents and what the consequences were.

TalentHook data breach

In 2024, TalentHook, a leading recruitment management provider, exposed 26 million résumés of job seekers across the United States containing personal information such as names, addresses, and employment histories. The root cause of the incident was human error during the Azure Blob storage container setup.

Cyberattack on MGM Resorts

In September 2023, MGM Resorts suffered a large-scale ransomware attack that disrupted operations across its hotels and casinos. The Scattered Spider threat group used MFA fatigue tactics to gain access through an employee. They repeatedly sent login prompts until one of the users approved it by mistake.

PowerSchool data breach

In December 2024, PowerSchool, a major provider of educational software, disclosed a cybersecurity incident that led to the exfiltration of personal data from its Student Information System (SIS). Exfiltrated data included names, contact details, birth dates, limited medical alert information, and, in some cases, Social Security or Social Insurance Numbers. The investigation revealed that the hackers had gained access using compromised credentials.

Best practices to prevent mistakes by privileged users

Minimizing the risk of negligence on the part of privileged users and preventing your regular employees from inadvertently becoming insider threats is essential for your cybersecurity. Let’s explore a few best practices for securing system administrators’ accounts that can help you achieve that goal:

1. Clarify the rules and make them known

Start by specifying the rules for every process your privileged users are involved in. Then educate your employees and subcontractors on these rules. Make sure people know the rules and understand why it’s important to follow them. Educate both regular and privileged users to improve your company’s overall cybersecurity.

2. Deploy a password management solution

Consider using a dedicated password management tool or service in addition to specifying rules for password use in your cybersecurity policy. User-friendly tools can help you eliminate poor practices, like insecure password sharing. Look for a solution that allows for securely storing, managing, rotating, and revoking passwords.

3. Protect your sensitive assets with MFA

Make MFA mandatory for the most important and valuable resources in your company. But don’t overdo it, as increasing the number of required identity verifications can frustrate and inconvenience your employees.

4. Use role-based access control (RBAC)

Define specific roles within your company and assign granular access rights to each. In this way, you can effectively implement the principle of least privilege (POLP) and make sure that people in your company have just the right level of privileges to do their jobs. To discover more about this access control model, you can read our detailed article on what RBAC and ABAC are.

5. Monitor and effectively manage privileged users

Control privileged user access with a privileged access management (PAM) solution. Watch your privileged users closely so you can see who did what and quickly respond to potential incidents. Deploy session recording software that can monitor and log privileged user sessions, and follow privileged user monitoring best practices. Software that lets you set custom alerts and automatically terminate suspicious processes and accounts is also useful.

Monitoring Privileged Users with Syteca

Reduce human error and insider risks with Syteca

Syteca is a cybersecurity platform with robust privileged access management and user activity monitoring capabilities that allow you to control risks posed by human factors and protect your organization’s inside perimeter. 

With Syteca, your security team can:

• Continuously scan your IT infrastructure for unmanaged privileged accounts and take control of them to close security gaps.
• Authenticate users with two-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized access to critical assets in your organization.
• Granularly control privileged access to limit users’ permissions to a minimum and reduce cybersecurity risks.
• Securely store and manage passwords to protect privileged credentials against compromise.
• Monitor user activity in real time to gain transparency and visibility into how regular and privileged users interact with your systems and data without violating their privacy. 
• Leverage real-time alerts and incident response to detect threats fast and stop them before they damage your systems, data, or reputation.

Syteca is a great fit for both SMBs and large enterprises alike, offering simple deployment, smooth integration with existing IT infrastructure, seamless scalability, and flexible licensing options.

Strengthening security where it matters most

Like all human beings, privileged users are prone to mistakes. However, they aren’t just potential points of failure — they are also your organization’s first line of defense. While advanced tools and policies are essential, the true strength of your organization’s cybersecurity lies in privileged users’ vigilance, awareness, and daily decisions.

By combining clear security policies, continuous awareness training, and trusted solutions like Syteca, you can build a proactive cybersecurity defense that effectively safeguards your critical assets.