Financial Institutions Need Privileged Access Management More Than Ever — Here’s Why

What if one unauthorized access attempt ended up costing your bank millions? That’s exactly what happened to TransUnion in 2025, when hackers stole the personal data of 4.4 million people by abusing privileged credentials. 

This breach illustrates a harsh reality: privileged accounts are among the top targets for attackers, and data breaches in financial institutions are among the most costly across all industries.

In this article, you’ll discover why privileged access management is important for the fintech industry. We’ll also explore its benefits and regulatory drivers, learn best practices, and see how Syteca PAM can secure financial institutions.

Key takeaways

• Financial services are among the prime targets for cybercriminals, with the finance and insurance industry being the second‑most attacked industry worldwide.
• Privileged accounts are the #1 entry point, with nearly a third of incidents resulting from credential compromise.
• PAM solutions can reduce cybersecurity risks by shrinking the attack surface and preventing lateral movement.
• Standards, laws, and regulations such as PCI DSS, GLBA, SOX, DORA, and SWIFT CSP require strict controls over privileged accounts.
• Syteca offers robust PAM capabilities to satisfy the security needs of both large and small financial organizations.

Why financial institutions need PAM

Banks, insurers, and payment firms sit at the center of the digital economy. They hold customers’ funds and sensitive personal data, which makes them extremely attractive targets for cybercriminals. 

In their 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report, Verizon describes the use of stolen credentials as the “powerhouses for most of the breaches” in the finance and insurance sector. The report reveals that stolen credentials are involved in 30% of all breaches in the industry.

Whether through internal misuse or compromised vendor access, attackers routinely infiltrate financial systems through valid credentials.

Consequences of inadequate access management in finance

Without proper PAM in place, financial institutions risk direct monetary theft, data exfiltration, regulatory fines, customer lawsuits, reputational damage, and operational disruption. In heavily regulated sectors like finance, breaches can result in failure to pass audits or even the loss of licenses. 

Financial losses

According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025, the average global cost per data breach in financial services has reached $6.08 million. These costs include forensic investigations, legal fees, regulatory fines, system recovery, and business disruption expenses.

Compliance failures

Financial institutions operate under strict regulatory oversight, with the GDPR, PCI DSS, SOX, DORA, and SWIFT CSP mandating specific access controls and audit requirements. Lack of proper PAM can result in failed audits and significant regulatory penalties.

Reputational damage

The financial services industry is built on trust. Data breaches erode customer confidence, and long-term reputational damage often exceeds immediate financial costs, affecting market valuation and competitive positioning.

Operational disruptions

Cyberattacks targeting financial infrastructure can disrupt critical services, affecting payment processing, online banking, and customer operations. 86% of organizations experience significant business disruptions following a data breach, according to IBM’s 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report. When third-party contractors are involved in incidents, restoring operations is even slower and more complex due to poor accountability and unclear access trails.

The 2025 TransUnion data breach demonstrates how improperly managed access can become a weak link and the possible consequences:

Such incidents highlight that cybersecurity breaches in finance stem from excessive or poorly monitored access, whether by internal users, contractors, or vendors. The solution lies in adopting a mature PAM program. 

How PAM can protect your organization

What is PAM in cybersecurity?

Privileged access management is a set of policies, procedures, and technologies that control, monitor, and audit accounts with elevated privileges. According to Microsoft, PAM helps protect organizations against threats by preventing unauthorized access to their critical resources, thus ensuring financial data security.

How does PAM work?

PAM works through a combination of people, processes, and technology, and gives you visibility into who is using privileged accounts and what they are doing while they are logged in. Limiting the number of users who have access to administrative functions increases system security while additional layers of protection mitigate data breaches by threat actors.

Microsoft

When implemented properly, PAM limits the reach of attackers or malicious insiders, reduces the window of opportunity, and provides investigators with forensic evidence.

Main benefits of PAM in the financial sector

The implementation of privileged user access management in banking environments delivers measurable benefits across multiple dimensions.

Enhanced cybersecurity posture

PAM solutions build multiple layers of defense against the most common attack vectors targeting financial institutions:

• Protection against credential-based attacks. By eliminating standing privileges, PAM dramatically reduces the window of opportunity for attackers. Advanced encryption algorithms and centralized password management further ensure that even if credentials are compromised, automated rotation cycles render them useless.

• Defense against human error and social engineering. PAM solutions typically incorporate multi-factor authentication and approval workflows that prevent unauthorized access resulting from phishing attacks or accidental credential exposure. 

• Insider threat prevention. Session recording and real-time monitoring capabilities of some PAM platforms enable organizations to detect and respond to malicious insider activity before it causes damage. 

Reduced third-party risk

Financial institutions increasingly rely on external service providers. PAM solutions can help financial entities minimize third-party risks through:

• Controlled remote access. Modern PAM solutions provide safe remote access that eliminates the need to expose credentials to external parties. Third-party vendors receive time-limited, task-specific access without standing privileges. Thus, you can make sure there are no dormant accounts within your network.

• Session monitoring. Many PAM solutions for financial institutions can monitor all third-party activity, providing complete visibility into contractors’ interactions with your sensitive systems and data. This capability has proven crucial in preventing attacks like the aforementioned TransUnion breach.

Simplified compliance 

Financial institutions operate under extensive regulatory requirements that PAM solutions directly support:

• Policy enforcement. Streamlined policy enforcement ensures the consistent application of access controls across the organization, eliminating human error and reducing security gaps.

• Audit trail. PAM solutions maintain tamper-proof audit logs of user actions and access activities, enabling security teams and auditors to reconstruct security events.
• Automated compliance reporting. Some PAM solutions can generate comprehensive reports for auditors, demonstrating adherence to regulatory requirements without manual data collection. 

Streamlined IT operations

Beyond security benefits, PAM solutions deliver significant improvements to operational efficiency:

• Centralized access management. With some PAM solutions, IT teams can manage all privileged access across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments. This centralization reduces administrative overhead while improving security.

• Automated processes. PAM automation eliminates routine tasks, such as manual password resets and access provisioning, allowing security teams to focus on strategic initiatives.

Best practices for implementing PAM within financial organizations

In highly regulated sectors like banking and insurance, privileged accounts must be continuously identified, controlled, and monitored. Below are key steps to building an effective PAM program that meets both the security and compliance demands of the finance sector.

1. Define clear access policies and roles 

Start by identifying which systems store or provide access to critical assets such as payment gateways, SWIFT terminals, or customer data repositories. Define privileged roles and assign ownership for privileged accounts to ensure accountability. Establish role-based access control (RBAC) policies and classify access levels according to positions and responsibilities.

2. Discover and onboard all privileged accounts

Conduct a thorough inventory of administrator accounts and SSH keys. Many financial breaches stem from forgotten or orphaned accounts that go undetected within critical systems. Automate account discovery across your environment and onboard newly discovered accounts.

3. Enforce the principle of least privilege 

Grant every user and system only the minimum level of access necessary to perform their job tasks. Schedule periodic access reviews and automatically revoke unused or expired permissions. For financial institutions, this practice directly supports compliance with frameworks like SOX and GLBA.

4. Provide just‑in‑time access 

Instead of permanent admin rights, use temporary, time-bound privileges that expire automatically after the task is completed. Integrate PAM workflows with ticketing systems, requiring users to justify each access request.

5. Secure remote access and third‑party integrations

External vendors, auditors, and support engineers often require temporary access to critical infrastructure. Choose a PAM solution that provides secure remote access to your systems. Apply the basics of zero trust: eliminate standing privileges, verify every identity, and continuously monitor all activity.

6. Use multi‑factor authentication

Strengthen your security by enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all privileged accounts, including admin and vendor accounts. Use factors such as biometrics or one-time passcodes for an additional layer of verification. 

7. Automate password rotation

Static or shared passwords pose significant risks. Automate password and key rotations to limit the window of exploitation in case credentials are compromised. You can set rotation intervals aligned with relevant compliance requirements — e.g., every 24 hours for high-risk systems and after each session.

8. Continuously monitor and record sessions

Record all privileged sessions, ideally alongside typed keystroke logs and executed commands, to gain full visibility into privileged activities. Continuous monitoring helps detect suspicious activity in real time, such as attempts to escalate privileges, unusual commands, or unauthorized data access. Choose a PAM solution that offers full-motion video recording which enables precise playback for audits or investigations.

9. Prepare for incident investigation

Store all session recordings and activity logs in a tamper-proof, immutable format. This way, if an incident occurs, these records will allow security and compliance teams to reconstruct what happened and who was involved. Link PAM logs with your SIEM system to accelerate incident response.

10. Perform employee training 

Even the best PAM systems can be undermined by human error. Regularly train staff to recognize social engineering tactics and internal policy violations. Simulate incident response drills that include PAM-related scenarios like compromised admin credentials or malicious insider activity to ensure your response team knows how to proceed efficiently.

Syteca: A modern PAM solution for financial institutions

Syteca is a comprehensive privileged access management platform that addresses the unique needs of financial institutions. The key features of Syteca PAM include:

• Account discovery. Automatically scan networks for privileged accounts with discovery rules supporting multiple domains. The platform offers flexible account onboarding and sends email notifications about newly detected accounts.
• Password management. Centralize password management with a secure vault, automated password rotation, a password check-out feature, and enable secure credential sharing within teams.
• Endpoint access management. Require two‑factor authentication to verify users accessing your sensitive endpoints. Enable secondary authentication to identify user actions under shared accounts.
• Granular access provisioning. Grant privileged permissions only for specific users and only for a specific period of time. The platform also offers manual access approvals and integrates with ticketing systems. 
• Session recording. Record every privileged session, enabling real‑time monitoring and full-motion playback for forensic investigations.
• Agentless browser‑based RDP/SSH connectivity. Enable remote users to quickly launch sessions directly through their browsers using the Web Connection Manager.

Key use cases demonstrating how Syteca enhances security include:

In addition to PAM capabilities, Syteca can deliver advanced user activity monitoring (UAM) features, including real-time alerts, automated incident response actions, comprehensive reporting, and more. 

Thanks to Syteca’s flexible licensing model, you can choose to activate only the PAM and UAM features you need. This allows banks to start small and expand capabilities as requirements grow.

Syteca supports on‑premises, cloud, and hybrid deployments. Lightweight, tamper‑proof agents ensure the platform works without impacting your system’s performance. 

Institutions in finance face some of the costliest breaches and are targeted more than in almost any other sector. Most of these breaches begin with a stolen or misused privileged account. Without robust privileged access management in place, a single compromised password can lead to the exposure of millions of records..

By adopting a modern PAM solution like Syteca, financial institutions can reduce their attack surface, detect and stop threats faster, streamline operations, and simplify audits.