yeah so coming from my perspective as someone currently doing pentesting and previously working as a soc analyst and security engineer, tools like that can definitely make life easier compared to manually logging into 20 servers to patch and check things.

the main thing you already identified is correct though. platforms like Action1 or Level.io basically become a central control plane for your servers. if an attacker compromises that console or the account that manages it, they potentially gain the same access the tool has. in a lot of environments that means remote command execution patch deployment software install and sometimes shell access across every machine with the agent.

so the risk is not really the tool itself. the risk is that you are concentrating privilege and access in one place.

that said for a small environment with around 20 windows servers the operational benefit usually outweighs the risk if you set it up properly. most smb environments already have worse exposure from manual admin access or reused credentials.

things i would think about beyond just enabling mfa and ip restrictions

first privilege separation. do not run everything with a single global admin account. create separate accounts for daily management vs full administrative control if the platform allows it.

second protect domain controllers more carefully. you mentioned most of these are domain controllers which makes them the highest value targets in the network. if possible restrict what commands or scripts can run against them from the rmm tool or at least monitor that activity heavily.

third audit logging. make sure the platform logs actions like script execution remote sessions patch deployments and user logins. from my old soc analyst days this is one of the first places we check during investigations. you want logs that clearly show who did what and when.

fourth api tokens and integrations. some rmm platforms allow api keys or automation hooks. those often get forgotten and can become a quiet entry point if they are leaked.

fifth agent trust model. remember that if the management platform pushes something malicious the agents will usually trust it automatically. that is why protecting the admin console and accounts is critical.

sixth vendor security posture. look into things like how they handle authentication where their infrastructure is hosted and whether they have had past security incidents. any cloud management platform is part of your attack surface.

from the pentesting side i will say attackers love rmm tools because they give them instant scale once compromised. but that does not mean you should avoid them. it just means you treat them like a tier zero system similar to active directory.

the reality is automation tools like these are often safer than manual patching because systems actually get updated regularly.