Case Study: MSH Consultants achieves secure password and local admin control with BeyondTrust

Managing Passwords & Local Administration Rights a Two-Step Approach to a Secure Workflow

Abe Smith, Principal at MSH Consultants, recounts his work as Director of InfoSec at a high‑tech company that was constantly “putting out fires.” A penetration test and a CISO‑generated top‑10 priorities list led him to focus on two root causes: compromised passwords (responsible for roughly 8 of 10 breaches) and excessive local admin rights, which most employees neither need nor understand.

He ran a two‑week bake‑off and chose a Privileged Access Management (PAM) platform from BeyondTrust, then rolled it out in phases—C‑suite, InfoSec, early adopters—while combining technical controls (password rotation, whitelists/graylists/blacklists, monitoring) with user education. The result was a cultural and technical shift: stronger credential and privilege controls, improved visibility and reporting, fewer reactive incidents, and an InfoSec team able to focus on prevention rather than firefighting.

MSH Consultants

Abe Smith

Principal