StrongDM: The Dynamic Access Management Platform

I have been using StrongDM for around one year as a client. My main use case for StrongDM is to authenticate my user to get access to the cloud environment.

A specific example of how I use StrongDM to access my cloud environment is that I typically need to access Kubernetes resources, and to do that, I use StrongDM to find the resource inside SDM and connect to it. This is the only use case I have.

The best feature StrongDM offers is that it is easy to integrate with a command line.

The command line integration helps me in my day-to-day work because our DevOps team created a script that automatically connects StrongDM to the correct cloud resource, and it works all the time.

I find the ability to integrate StrongDM via command line and UI that allows me to connect or disconnect specific resources useful and unique; the ease of it stands out for me.

StrongDM has positively impacted my organization by ensuring that every developer has access to cloud resources, which are audited by the organization, allowing us to keep track of who accesses what and control the access.

StrongDM is very stable in my experience.

Regarding StrongDM's scalability, since I am using the StrongDM client that runs on my laptop, I cannot assess much about its scalability, but the response time is very fast, so I assume the scalability is good.

I did not use any different solutions; this is my first time using it in this company.

I am not aware of StrongDM's AI capabilities, including its governance and security.

I don't know about StrongDM's AI capabilities regarding its accuracy and reliability of output since I don't use this feature.

I would say that StrongDM is deployed on-premises in my organization, but I am not certain because I am not involved in those details.

I assess StrongDM's effectiveness in closing breach paths in real time as a very effective way.

I don't have an opinion on the importance of StrongDM's continuous authorization versus periodic checks for my organization.

I am not aware of how StrongDM's credential-less access control integrates with existing vaults and secret managers, but I am getting access to cloud resources and have not explored those features.

I assess StrongDM's ability to unify access across different systems in my organization as effective; we mostly use access to our cloud resources and work with different cloud providers.

I am not involved in the pricing, setup cost, or licensing, as it is managed by different DevOps teams.

I have not interacted with StrongDM's customer support, so I cannot comment on it.

It is difficult for me to give any advice because I am using StrongDM as a regular user, but I am very satisfied. I give StrongDM an overall rating of ten out of ten.

My main use case for StrongDM is to assess identity and authentication and authorization access control reviews. When I conduct internal audits or assessments to check the presence of security controls, I use StrongDM to navigate to the configuration settings panel to check what flags and features are enabled or disabled. I appreciate the UI of the overall tool and its functionality.

There was a situation where I had to check whether the privileged account credentials maintained in StrongDM PAM tool are actually encrypted. I configured and opened StrongDM and checked the settings in the configuration window where I was able to verify that StrongDM contains controls and features which enable it to encrypt privileged account credentials. Additionally, it has features for auditing, generating audit trails, and log trails for all activities conducted by any user who is using privileged accounts. Apart from that, there is a database active monitoring tool embedded within StrongDM. These are certain cases where I have navigated this tool and found the UI to be very user-friendly.

The best features StrongDM offers include the JIT access and workflows, which is the Just-in-Time access provided by StrongDM. Apart from that, there are features like the context-aware policy engine, which helps this tool integrate with endpoint security providers like CrowdStrike and SentinelOne. It also offers comprehensive session visibility and auditing, which helps in session recording and captures all the SSH and RDP terminal sessions as replayable video files. Additionally, it has the ability to navigate with SIEM tools, such as Splunk or DataDog, used to capture all the logs of the servers or cloud storage tools such as Amazon S3 bucket or EC2 instances. Those features are very handy and can integrate very easily with StrongDM. It also offers infrastructure-wide protocol support, whether it talks about PostgreSQL, MySQL, or any database tool. It has secrets management and offers a secret vault agnostic feature through which it can be integrated with any encryption key management tool such as HashiCorp or AWS Secrets Manager. The best thing about it is that it offers a developer-friendly deployment, which is very straightforward and simple with StrongDM PAM tool.

StrongDM has positively impacted my organization by saving me a lot of time as a security auditor, because I have to navigate settings and configurations to check the presence of certain security controls in place. When I am auditing StrongDM, it obviously helps me. It has a very user-friendly UI, with which any auditor or any security professional will find it easier to navigate different options to check the presence of security controls. Apart from that, it also offers dynamic access control, enforcing restrictions based on user role, time of the day, location, and device context. These features help auditors significantly.

I think StrongDM could improve by focusing more on network device management by allowing the addition of PAM for network devices, managing legacy network equipment, or helping to initiate enterprise onboarding where a lot of complex environments and initial setup are required. I think that would be a good area for StrongDM to work on.

Apart from that, integration with SIEM and SOAR tools, regarding the logs generated by any privileged user account in these SIEM or SOAR tools, and how to ensure these logs are encrypted, are areas that if StrongDM focuses on, will help it gain advantage over other products in the market right now because they do not have it.

Another area for improvement is the client-side footprint. If StrongDM can provide an installation for user workstations in strict or heavily lockdown environments, maintaining and deploying these desktop clients across thousands of machines can pose a logistical challenge for IT teams. If StrongDM can work on that area as well, it will be a great product.

I have been using StrongDM for approximately three or four months.

I have not noticed any issues with StrongDM's stability or reliability.

StrongDM's continuous authorization is advanced, and using credential-less accounts offers a lot of flexibility to the users within the company. I believe it is a great initiative.

StrongDM works best to unify access across different systems.

I have not personally interacted with StrongDM's customer support, but I have not heard any complaints from any vendors who are using StrongDM.

I can share that in terms of the number of hours, as an auditor, if I require 30 hours to audit a PAM tool, with the help of StrongDM, when I am auditing the tool, it will help me to audit the whole thing within 10 hours or maybe 15 hours. This amounts to approximately 50% of the time saved for me as an auditor.

My advice for others looking into using StrongDM includes its user flexibility, good scalability, and providing advanced features. If they are looking for these things, they should proceed with StrongDM. My overall rating for this product is 9 out of 10.

My main use case for StrongDM is to provide access to database credentials. I wanted to give users access to the database and also to the applications that I have built for testing. Providing privileged access to users through StrongDM is the core use case I implemented.

StrongDM positively impacts my organization by helping with compliance and audit functions. Audits and compliance are areas where this tool helps significantly because it maintains records in such a way that whenever an investigation is needed on something particular or an incident occurs in the organization, it helps in obtaining information regarding the access given to users. This is one of the positive things, and the outcome it brings could lead to better usage of the product and a better running of the organization in giving access and managing licenses.

If something goes wrong, such as when a user performs an action on a server they have been given access to that should not have been done, checking is easier because the session will be recorded by StrongDM. The session recording feature is useful for the audit and compliance team to investigate issues and rectify them in time so that they will not affect other users.

The best features that StrongDM offers include centralized access management, which I would say is the best feature provided.

Centralized access management helps me by giving users access all in one place where they can easily access resources such as databases, internal applications, and VPN access. All of these resources can be managed at one centralized platform, giving unified access to users. Centralized access management is something I appreciate about StrongDM.

I would not say ease of use and integration are features to criticize because ease of use is something taken on by the user, so it is actually considerable. Integration, however, is something which admins configure with StrongDM, and in that area, it can be improved. Sometimes, if there is an architecture or infrastructure that is more complex, it would take extra time for integrations.

I think something can be improved in AI, such as using AI for certain functions within StrongDM. Enhancing features with AI can help StrongDM grow significantly in its domain.

I would say that reports can now be generated from the data StrongDM stores. For instance, if one user accessed a database or Kubernetes cluster a long time ago and is not using it now, applying intelligence to that data can better inform the admin. The system could indicate that a particular user has accessed that resource in the past but is not using it currently. Better addressing least privilege access by removing unnecessary access would be valuable. Those AI capabilities that provide insights to admins regarding access could be very helpful.

I have already mentioned that AI capabilities can be improved, and the remaining aspects such as recording queries, sessions, and SSH keys are already being managed well by StrongDM. I believe AI capabilities could be enhanced, and I would also suggest improvement in reporting and dashboard generation with the data available in StrongDM.

There are no challenges because I already had knowledge in this area from using similar types of products other than StrongDM. The unique approach that StrongDM offers is centralized access where I can provide user access to all types of resources such as internal applications, which could be databases or Kubernetes clusters. This is one of the features that StrongDM has, and it represents the unique value and the approach I have experienced while using StrongDM.

I would assess StrongDM's effectiveness in closing breach paths in real-time as easy and effective, although I have not encountered this type of situation in my test case.

Continuous authorization is more valuable than periodic checks from my perspective because if something goes wrong during the period of a periodic check, it could be a loss for the organization. Continuous authorization is better.

My advice for others looking into using StrongDM is to plan everything before integrating it into their organization. It is not suitable for very small startups with fewer resources. It is more useful for organizations that have adopted Kubernetes, VPN access, databases, and manual applications for granting access. These resources can better benefit from StrongDM based on my experience.

I have rated this review with a score of seven.