What Is Privileged Remote Access (PRA)?

The Importance of Privileged Remote Access 

As businesses expand their remote work capabilities and rely more on third-party vendors, the need for secure access to sensitive systems and data becomes paramount. Without proper controls, the tools that enable productivity can become vectors for cyberattacks. Privileged users, whether internal administrators or external contractors, hold the digital keys to critical infrastructure, making their access a prime target for bad actors. 

Inadequate privileged access management can have devastating consequences. Beyond the risk of data breaches, attackers who gain access to privileged accounts can disrupt operations, cause system outages, or even endanger human lives. In sectors like manufacturing, energy, or healthcare, compromised access can lead to production shutdowns, equipment malfunctions, or catastrophic failures—potentially resulting in physical harm, injury, or loss of life. These incidents not only lead to downtime and reputational damage but can also incur significant financial costs, regulatory penalties, and legal liabilities. 

Insider threats pose an equally concerning risk. Whether intentional or accidental, employees and contractors with excessive or poorly monitored access can jeopardize both security and safety. Without stringent controls and real-time visibility, a trusted user could abuse their privileges, causing data leaks, system outages, or unauthorized changes that may lead to serious safety hazards. Implementing a robust privileged remote access solution ensures that organizations can enforce the principle of least privilege, monitor all sessions in real time, and respond swiftly to suspicious activity, protecting both their systems and their people. 

Ultimately, privileged remote access isn’t just about enabling work—it’s about safeguarding the foundation of your business and the safety of your personnel. Organizations that fail to secure this access are leaving the door open to potentially catastrophic threats, both external and internal. By adopting a zero trust approach, organizations can ensure that every user, device, and connection is continuously verified, reducing the risk of unauthorized access and enhancing both operational security and safety.

How Privileged Remote Access Works

Privileged remote access tightly controls and monitors how users—particularly those with elevated permissions—connect to critical systems. Unlike general remote access, which might grant broad access to a network, privileged remote access is more granular, allowing administrators to define specific permissions based on a user’s role. This ensures that only authorized individuals can interact with sensitive data or systems, minimizing the risk of insider threats and external breaches.

A core component of this process is identity verification. Before granting access, the system verifies the identity of the user through multifactor authentication (MFA), ensuring that only authorized personnel can proceed. Once authenticated, access is restricted to the exact resources needed, and all activities are logged and monitored in real time. This creates a detailed audit trail that can be analyzed for potential security anomalies. 

Integrating privileged remote access with a zero trust architecture further strengthens security. In a zero trust model, users are never trusted by default, even if they are inside the network perimeter. Continuous authentication, session monitoring, and dynamic access controls are applied at every step, ensuring that elevated access is granted only when required, and then revoked immediately when no longer required. This minimizes attack surfaces and limits the potential damage from compromised credentials.

Key Features of Privileged Remote Access Solutions

Privileged remote access solutions are designed to safeguard critical systems by granting secure, controlled access to sensitive resources. Here are five essential features that ensure both security and operational efficiency: 

1. Granular access controls: Define precise permissions based on roles, ensuring users only access the systems and data they need, and nothing more.
2. Multifactor authentication (MFA): Strengthen identity verification with multiple layers of authentication, reducing the risk of unauthorized access.
3. Session monitoring and recording: Track and log every privileged session in real time, providing an audit trail for compliance and incident response.
4. Just-in-time (JIT) access: Grant temporary, time-limited access to privileged accounts, minimizing exposure to sensitive systems and reducing the attack surface.
5. Zero trust enforcement: Continuously verify the identity and trustworthiness of users, devices, and connections, ensuring that no access is granted without proper validation at every step.

Benefits of Privileged Remote Access

Privileged remote access isn’t just about convenience—it’s about securing the most critical aspects of your infrastructure. Here are some key advantages organizations can expect:

• Enhanced security controls: Limiting access to only users with required privileges reduces the attack surface and ensures sensitive systems remain protected
• Auditability and compliance: Detailed logs of every session and action help meet regulatory requirements and provide transparency for security audits
• File sandboxing: Isolating potentially dangerous files in a sandboxed environment helps prevent malicious software from compromising critical systems during privileged access sessions
• Granular access management: Assigning and revoking privileges in real time ensures users only access the resources they need, when they need them
• Reduced insider threats: Continuous monitoring and identity verification minimizes insider threats, whether intentional or accidental

Common Challenges in Privileged Remote Access

Implementing privileged remote access can provide robust security, but it also presents several hurdles that organizations must navigate. Below are some key challenges and how they can be addressed.

Complex Identity Management

Managing the identities of privileged users across multiple environments is no small feat. Organizations often struggle with maintaining consistent access controls, especially when dealing with legacy systems or hybrid cloud infrastructures. Ensuring that only the right individuals have access at the right time requires the integration of advanced identity governance tools that can centralize and automate this process.

Monitoring and Auditing Access

Visibility into privileged sessions is critical but can be difficult to achieve without the right monitoring tools. Traditional logging methods might not capture enough detail or provide real-time alerts, leaving organizations vulnerable to undetected breaches. A solution that focuses on continuous monitoring and granular session recording helps ensure that all privileged actions are tracked and auditable, reducing the risk of internal or external misuse. 

Balancing Security with User Experience

Implementing strict security measures can often lead to friction for users who need quick access to critical systems. While MFA and session timeouts are necessary, they can also slow down workflows if not carefully implemented. Organizations need to design privileged access workflows that prioritize security without sacrificing usability, leveraging adaptive authentication and context-aware policies to streamline the process.

Malware in Software Patches

One overlooked challenge in privileged remote access is the risk of malware embedded within software patches. Attackers may exploit vulnerabilities in patch management processes, distributing malicious code disguised as legitimate updates. To mitigate this risk, organizations should implement robust patch validation controls, including code signing and integrity checks, to ensure only trusted software is deployed.

Best Practices for Implementing Privileged Remote Access

Implementing privileged remote access effectively requires a strategic approach that balances security with usability. Below are four best practices that will help strengthen your organization’s defenses.

Implement User Training

Educate your employees on the importance of secure remote access, especially those with elevated privileges. Ensure they understand how to recognize phishing attacks, the dangers of reusing passwords, and the importance of reporting suspicious activities immediately. A well-informed team is your first line of defense.

Establish Clear Policies

Develop and enforce strict guidelines for privileged access. Define who can access sensitive systems, under what conditions, and for how long. These policies should be regularly updated to reflect evolving threats and align with compliance requirements.

Regularly Review Access Rights

Conduct periodic audits of user access to ensure that privileges are only granted on a need-to-know basis. Remove or reduce access for users who no longer require it, and monitor for any unusual patterns of behavior. This proactive approach helps minimize potential insider threats.

Enable Zero Trust

Adopt a zero trust model that continuously verifies the identity of every user and device, regardless of their location. MFA, least-privileged access, and real-time monitoring are key components in reducing the risk of unauthorized access or credential compromise.

The Differences Between PAM and PRA

As organizations continue to embrace remote work and diversify their IT environments, managing access to critical systems has become more challenging than ever. Two key solutions—privileged access management (PAM) and privileged remote access (PRA)—address these challenges, but they do so in different ways. Understanding the distinctions between these tools is crucial for implementing a security strategy that aligns with the principles of zero trust. 

While PAM and PRA share the goal of securing privileged access, PAM offers a wider scope of control within internal environments, whereas PRA is purpose-built for securely managing external, remote connections. Depending on your organization’s needs, both solutions can play a critical role in fortifying a zero trust security posture.

The Future of Privileged Remote Access

As organizations adopt more cloud-based services and hybrid work environments, privileged remote access will continue to evolve. The traditional boundaries of the corporate network are vanishing, making it imperative that access to critical systems and data is tightly controlled.

The future lies in more seamless and granular access control mechanisms, where user identity, device posture, and contextual factors such as location and time play a crucial role in determining access rights. Organizations will need to prioritize adaptive, real-time access solutions that not only scale but also minimize the attack surface. 

Looking ahead, the rise of AI will reshape both the threat landscape and the tools used to defend against it. AI-driven cyberattacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, capable of exploiting vulnerabilities and bypassing traditional security measures with alarming speed. In response, AI will also be embedded into cybersecurity solutions, enhancing threat detection and response capabilities.

For organizations to stay ahead, aligning AI-driven security strategies with a zero trust architecture—where identity verification is continuous and dynamic—will be essential in safeguarding privileged remote access.

Zscaler Privileged Remote Access

Zscaler Privileged Remote Access enables fast, direct, and secure access to operational technology (OT) and industrial internet of things (IIoT) assets in field locations, the factory floor, or anywhere without relying on VPNs or agents.

With the Zscaler zero trust framework, you can prevent unplanned downtime and ensure maximum productivity in industrial systems as well as:

• Minimize the attack surface: Make OT and IIoT systems invisible to attackers by eliminating the need for exposed ports.
• Eliminate lateral movement: Users and OT systems are never connected on the same network, preventing the spread of malware and ransomware attacks.
• Accelerate OT/IT convergence: Safely connect and maintain OT systems while retaining the speed and agility of remote management.

Want to see firsthand how Zscaler secures remote access for OT and IIoT? Schedule a custom demo with one of our experts to learn how we’re enabling and protecting the future of IT, OT, and IoT.