Google Unveils Guide for Defenders to Monitor Privileged User Accounts

In response to escalating threats of credential theft, Google, through its Mandiant cybersecurity division, has unveiled a detailed guide to help defenders monitor and secure privileged accounts across modern IT environments.

This resource emphasizes practical strategies to mitigate risks posed by stolen credentials, which accounted for 16% of intrusions in 2024, according to Mandiant’s M-Trends report.

As cloud migrations expand attack surfaces with human and non-human identities, the guide positions privileged access management (PAM) as a cornerstone of organizational resilience.

The guide highlights how adversaries increasingly exploit privileged accounts for initial access, lateral movement, and mission completion, often via infostealer malware or social engineering enhanced by AI.

Stolen credentials enable breaches with a median dwell time of 11 days, underscoring the need for an assume-breach mindset.

Google’s Guide for Defenders

Mandiant structures its recommendations around three pillars: prevention through securing access pathways, detection via visibility engineering, and response with rapid remediation tactics.

Prevention starts with defining privileged accounts broadly, encompassing service accounts, API keys, and developers’ cloud access beyond traditional domain admins.

It advocates tiering accounts by impact (T0 for crown jewels like domain controllers, T1 for core platforms, T2 for workstations) and mapping dependencies like jump servers.

Organizations are urged to advance PAM maturity from uninitiated (manual, spreadsheet-based tracking) to an iterative, automated, analytics-driven approach.

Key controls include multifactor authentication (MFA) on all admin paths, just-in-time/just-enough administration (JIT/JEA), and privileged access workstations (PAWs) on segmented networks.

Dedicated PAM tools like CyberArk or Google’s own Privileged Access Manager are recommended for vaulting credentials, enforcing rotations, and session recording.

For detection, the guide stresses high-fidelity monitoring in tools like Google SecOps, distinguishing privileged anomalies from general IAM abuse through behavioral analytics and machine learning.

Specific hunts target brute-force on Tier-0 accounts, GPO modifications, and service account deviations. In incidents, immediate isolation network pulls, token revocation pairs with coordinated credential resets via PAM.

Remediation involves enterprise-wide password rotations and forensics on attack paths, including malware scans on developer systems. Recovery planning covers hardening virtualization (e.g., ESXi Lockdown Mode) and backups with immutable storage.

By integrating SoD, zero-standing privileges, and automated responses, the guide equips defenders to shrink blast radii and comply with standards like NIST and PCI DSS.

Released amid rising insider and third-party risks, this framework empowers security teams to protect the “keys to the kingdom” effectively.

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