Yes, when the platform supports both. Short-lived credentials reduce the duration of misuse and force periodic re-validation, while legacy long-lived tokens tend to persist until someone notices them. The right sequencing is to shrink standing access first, then tighten review and revocation around whatever remains.
Why short-lived credentials usually beat legacy tokens in practice
Short-lived credentials are usually the safer default because they narrow the window in which a stolen credential is useful and they force the system to re-check trust more often. Legacy long-lived tokens are convenient, but once they leak, they often remain valid far longer than the business expects, especially when revocation, inventory and ownership are weak.
The practical difference is not just lifespan. Short-lived credentials also encourage tighter scoping, clearer expiry, and better operational hygiene around issuance and rotation. Legacy tokens tend to accumulate in scripts, pipelines and integrations, which turns access review into archaeology rather than governance.
When teams compare them, the real question is whether the platform can issue short-lived access without creating a new operational bottleneck. If it can, the security gain is usually strong enough to justify the change. If it cannot, organisations should first improve credential discovery, scoping and revocation so that any remaining long-lived access is at least visible and controllable.
Where legacy tokens create the most risk
Legacy tokens are most dangerous when they outlive the person, service or workflow that originally needed them. That creates lingering access, makes compromise harder to detect, and gives attackers more time to move after a leak. The problem is amplified when tokens are reused across environments or embedded in code, build systems or vendor integrations.
They also weaken incident response. If a token has no clear owner, no dependable expiry and no reliable revocation path, teams may not know whether disabling it will break production or whether the same secret has already been copied elsewhere. This is why long-lived tokens often become a hidden dependency, not just an authentication mechanism.
Practically, legacy tokens are a control debt item. Every month they remain in circulation, the organisation inherits more drift between what access is supposed to exist and what access actually exists. API Key Management Guide and Guide to the Secret Sprawl Challenge are useful references for understanding how that drift shows up in real environments.
How to phase the change without breaking operations
The right sequence is usually to reduce standing access first, then replace the longest-lived tokens that have the widest blast radius, and only then tighten exceptions. That approach avoids the common failure mode where teams demand perfect short-lived infrastructure everywhere before they have the inventory, ownership or automation to support it.
For most organisations, the most effective starting point is to identify tokens that can reach production, cross environment boundaries, or sit in shared automation. Those are the ones where expiry and re-validation deliver the biggest security return. Less critical tokens can be migrated later, but they should still be tied to an owner and a revocation process.
The migration often works best when the platform can issue a short-lived credential at the moment of use, rather than storing a reusable token for convenience. Where that is not possible, the fallback should be a documented exception with compensating controls, not an unreviewed permanent token.
Useful implementation guidance is available in Secrets Management Guide and Guide to NHI Rotation Challenges, both of which focus on the operational reality of rotation, expiry and lifecycle management.
Risk and Threat Considerations
Long-lived tokens are attractive to attackers because they are reusable, portable and often poorly monitored. Once exposed through code, logs, endpoints or a compromised workstation, they can provide durable access that survives password resets and user deprovisioning. The longer a token lives, the more chance it has to be copied, inherited or forgotten.
Failure mechanism: The control fails when access is treated as a one-time issuance problem instead of a lifecycle problem. If revocation is slow, ownership is unclear, or the same token is shared across systems, the attacker can retain access even after the leak is discovered.
Impact: Stolen tokens can enable unauthorized access, lateral movement, data exfiltration and repeated re-entry until the token is explicitly revoked or expires. In practice, that extends incident duration and increases the cost of recovery.
Standards & Framework Alignment
This section maps relevant standards and security frameworks to the operational risks and controls described in this guidance.
OWASP Non-Human Identity Top 10 addresses the attack surface, NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 and CIS Controls v8 set the technical controls, and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 defines the regulatory obligations.
| Framework | Control / Reference | Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| OWASP Non-Human Identity Top 10 | NHI-07 — Long-Lived Secrets | Short-lived credentials directly address the risk of reusable secrets persisting too long. |
| NHI-02 — Secret Leakage | The question hinges on reducing damage after token exposure or theft. | |
| NHI-05 — Overprivileged NHI | Credential lifetime and privilege scope interact to determine blast radius. | |
| Recommendation — Prefer expiring credentials and rotate any long-lived secret that cannot be removed yet. Treat leaked tokens as compromised and revoke them immediately. Scope each credential to the minimum access needed and remove standing privilege. | ||
| NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 | IA-5 — Authenticator Management | Credential lifecycle, expiry, rotation and revocation are central to the comparison. |
| AC-6 — Least Privilege | Short-lived credentials are most valuable when they also shrink standing access. | |
| Recommendation — Enforce lifecycle controls for authenticators, including expiration and revocation. Limit each token to the minimum permissions required for the task. | ||
| ISO/IEC 27001:2022 | A.5.15 — Access control | The topic is fundamentally about controlling who can keep using access over time. |
| Recommendation — Define and enforce access rules that minimise standing credential exposure. | ||
| CIS Controls v8 | CIS-5 — Account Management | Credential replacement and revocation depend on disciplined account and access management. |
| CIS-6 — Access Control Management | The answer depends on tightening and revoking access paths, not just issuing tokens. | |
| Recommendation — Inventory accounts and credentials, then remove or replace any unnecessary long-lived access. Restrict access paths and revoke credentials that no longer need to exist. | ||
Practitioner Guidance
What to prioritise: Replace the tokens that can reach production, automation or third-party integrations first, because those have the highest blast radius if abused. Keep a separate exception path for anything that cannot yet be made short-lived, and review those exceptions on a fixed schedule.
What to verify: Before trusting a “temporary” credential, confirm that it actually expires, that revocation works quickly, and that the issuing system records an owner and purpose. If you cannot answer those three questions, the token is functionally legacy even if the label says otherwise.
Practitioner takeaway: Short-lived credentials are not just a better technical pattern, they are a governance advantage because they make access time-bound, reviewable and easier to revoke when reality changes.
Related resources from NHI Mgmt Group
- When should organisations prioritise short-lived tokens over convenience?
- When should organisations prioritise short-lived tokens over static secrets for coding agents?
- When should organisations prioritise organisation-level API credentials over user-scoped tokens for customer integrations?
- When should organisations prioritise short-lived cloud role assumption over long-lived secrets for API integrations?