Abstract: In one embodiment, a system includes a computing device providing a computing environment including a number of user accounts, where each of the user accounts is assigned specified privileges to execute particular commands or programs, receiving a request to temporarily escalate privileges for one of the user accounts during a specified duration, where the request includes an identifier of the user account, requested privileges, and the specified duration, granting the requested privileges for the specified duration in conjunction with specific restrictions on one or more prohibited activities that are normally permitted for user accounts with the requested privileges, monitoring, 1 0 during the specified duration, for any indication that the user account has attempted a prohibited activity, detecting an indication that the user account attempted one of the prohibited activities, and initiating an automated remediation corresponding to the indication.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a system includes first host machines implementing a public-cloud computing environment, wherein at least one of the first host machines comprises a resource manager that provides a public-cloud resource interface through which one or more public-cloud clients interact with one or more virtual machines, and second host machines implementing a private-cloud computing environment, wherein at least one of the second host machines comprises one or more private-cloud virtual machines, wherein at least one of the first host machines further comprises a private-cloud VM resource provider through which the resource manager interacts with the private-cloud virtual machines, wherein the VM resource provider translates requests to perform virtual machine operations from a public-cloud-resource interface to a private-cloud virtual machine interface, and the private-cloud virtual machines perform the requested virtual machine operations in response to receiving the translated requests from the VM resour