TL;DR: Identity-related alerts are consuming 11 person-hours each on average, while credential theft rose 160% in 2025, pushing privileged access management toward just-in-time controls, short-lived tokens, and tighter NHI governance according to Apono. The governing assumption is no longer that privileged access is stable enough to review later; in practice, access must expire before it becomes a standing attack surface.
At a glance
What this is: Apono argues that PAM for NHIs is moving toward JIT access, short-lived credentials and tighter governance because standing privilege and delayed review no longer match attack speed.
Why it matters: IAM and PAM teams should treat NHI privilege as an issuance-time problem, because time-bound access is becoming the practical control for reducing blast radius across cloud and AI-era workloads.
By the numbers:
- Identity-related alerts now consume 11 person-hours each on average, according to Apono.
- Credential theft rose 160% in 2025, according to Apono.
Context
Privileged access management for non-human identities is no longer just about storing secrets and proving who can log in. The article frames the problem around a widening gap between how fast identity-related threats move and how slowly many review and escalation processes still operate, especially in cloud environments where service accounts, APIs and bots hold meaningful access.
That gap matters because standing privilege is still the default in too many machine-to-machine workflows. When access persists longer than the task, the identity estate becomes easier to abuse, harder to audit and more expensive to investigate, which is why JIT issuance and automatic expiry are now central to the governance discussion.
Key questions
Q: What breaks when NHI credentials are overprivileged?
A: Overprivileged NHI credentials turn a single compromise into a larger access problem. Once attackers obtain the secret, they can often move laterally, reach higher-value systems and escalate privileges because the identity already carries more access than the task requires. The result is a wider blast radius and slower containment.
Q: Why do short-lived credentials not solve NHI risk by themselves?
A: Short-lived credentials only shrink the exposure window. They do not remove the underlying permissions attached to the service account, OAuth scope, or workload identity that issued them. If privilege remains broad, an attacker can still abuse fresh tokens repeatedly. Effective control requires both token expiry and scope reduction.
Q: How do teams know if JIT access is actually working for NHIs?
A: JIT access is working when privileged requests are time-bound, approvals are traceable, sessions are observable and no NHI retains access after the task ends. If teams still find broad entitlements, long-lived tokens or unowned service accounts, the control exists in policy but not in practice.
Q: Should security teams treat machine identities and human admins the same way in PAM?
A: They should govern both under the same privileged access discipline, but not with identical workflows. Human admin access may rely more on authentication and approval, while machine identities need runtime issuance, expiry and lifecycle ownership. The common requirement is that both be discoverable, scoped and auditable.
Technical breakdown
Why standing privilege breaks down for NHIs
Standing privilege assumes an identity can safely retain access between tasks, then be reviewed or revoked later. For NHIs, that assumption fails because service accounts, API tokens and bot credentials often exist specifically to run briefly, repeatedly and without human attendance. If those credentials remain active outside the task window, the identity is exposed for theft, reuse and lateral movement. JIT control changes the trust model by making access contingent on an explicit request and a short-lived authorization window rather than on persistent entitlement.
Practical implication: move high-value NHI access out of standing grants and into task-scoped issuance with automatic expiry.
How short-lived tokens and credential rotation change the attack surface
Short-lived tokens reduce the time an attacker can exploit stolen credentials, but they do not remove the need to control issuance, scope and revocation. Rotation matters most when credentials are reused across services or embedded in cloud and DevOps workflows, because a leaked secret can survive far beyond the original session. PAM workflows that vault, issue and rotate credentials centrally reduce that persistence, but only if they are aligned to the actual runtime of the workload rather than to a static admin model.
Practical implication: bind token lifetime and rotation cadence to workload runtime, not to an arbitrary calendar cycle.
Machine identity governance is now part of PAM design
The article treats machine identities as first-class privileged actors, not just as technical plumbing behind human admin access. That means PAM design has to include discovery, policy enforcement, session monitoring and audit trails for service accounts, APIs and other NHIs. The control challenge is not merely visibility, but deciding who can grant machine access, how it is scoped, and what evidence remains when the access ends. In practice, PAM and machine identity management are converging into one governance problem.
Practical implication: inventory NHIs alongside privileged human accounts and apply the same governance lifecycle to both.
Threat narrative
Attacker objective: The attacker wants durable privileged access that outlives the legitimate task so they can abuse cloud, API or administrative reach at scale.
- Entry begins when an attacker obtains privileged credentials or a reusable NHI secret that was meant to support a workload or admin task.
- Escalation follows when that standing credential still grants access beyond the original job, letting the attacker move from a narrow foothold to higher-value systems or sensitive data paths.
- Impact occurs when the reused privilege is used to alter systems, read protected data or extend access into additional cloud and DevOps environments.
Breaches seen in the wild
- BeyondTrust breach 2024: A stolen BeyondTrust Remote Support API key let a China state-sponsored actor reset accounts and reach US Treasury workstations in 2024.
- Azure Key Vault Contributor escalation 2024: Datadog found Azure Key Vault Contributor could add itself to access policies and read every secret, key and certificate in a vault.
Read our 52 NHI Breaches Analysis report for a comprehensive view of breaches impacting Non-Human Identities including AI Agents.
NHI Mgmt Group analysis
JIT is becoming the control plane for NHI privilege, not a convenience feature. The article shows that persistent entitlement is increasingly misaligned with how cloud service accounts, APIs and bots actually operate. Once privilege is only issued for the task window, the attack surface becomes materially smaller and the governance model becomes enforceable rather than aspirational.
Privileged access review is losing value where access expires before review can occur. Traditional governance assumes a credential remains valid long enough to be inspected, certified and later revoked. For short-lived NHI access, that assumption breaks, so the real control point shifts to issuance, scope and automatic teardown rather than retrospective review.
Ephemeral credential trust debt: temporary access reduces exposure only if the underlying lifecycle is disciplined end to end. If teams keep creating fresh secrets, tokens or approvals without governing ownership and offboarding, they simply replace standing privilege with a faster-moving version of the same problem. Practitioners should treat every issuance path as part of the privileged estate.
Machine identity governance and PAM are converging into one operating model. The article makes clear that discovery, session visibility, automated revocation and audit evidence are no longer separate disciplines when NHIs hold production access. That means IAM, PAM and cloud security teams need one shared view of who or what is privileged, for how long, and under which policy.
The market signal is a shift from vault-centric control to runtime control. Legacy vaulting still matters, but the article points to a category moving toward time-bound, policy-driven access with stronger workflow automation. Practitioners should expect procurement and architecture decisions to tilt toward platforms that can govern both human and machine privilege in execution time, not just at credential storage time.
From our research library:
- 97% of NHIs carry excessive privileges, increasing unauthorised access and broadening the attack surface, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- Read next: Just-in-Time Access and Zero Standing Privilege Guide
What this signals
Ephemeral access changes the governance question from who can hold privilege to who can mint it. When access is issued only for the job at hand, the control point shifts upstream into entitlement design, approval logic and revocation automation. That is where identity teams will need the strongest policy discipline, especially for cloud workloads and service accounts.
Machine identities need to be treated as part of the privileged estate, not a separate bucket. The article's direction of travel is clear: the organisations that keep human PAM and NHI governance apart will struggle to see the full blast radius of privileged access. One governance model should cover both issuance and offboarding.
Privilege should be measured by exposure time as much as by scope. A credential with narrow access can still be high risk if it lives too long, while broad access can be more manageable when it expires immediately after use. That is the operational shift NHIs force on PAM teams.
For practitioners
- Define NHI privilege by task window Classify service accounts, APIs and bots by the jobs they perform, then issue access only for the duration of that job. This reduces the chance that a reused credential becomes a standing entry point.
- Automate expiry for privileged access Set short-lived credentials and auto-expiring permissions as the default for high-value NHI workflows, especially where access supports cloud operations or DevOps jobs. The goal is to remove standing access before it becomes reusable.
- Inventory machine identities with human admins Maintain a single view of privileged human and non-human identities so discovery, ownership and revocation follow one governance process. Separate tracking tends to hide the real attack surface.
- Monitor privileged sessions for NHI workflows Record who or what requested access, what was granted, and which systems were touched during the session. This makes post-event investigation possible even when access is intentionally brief.
- Align emergency access to break-glass rules Reserve emergency access for tightly defined incidents and keep it distinct from routine JIT issuance. Break-glass paths should be easy to audit and harder to reuse as informal standing privilege.
Key takeaways
- Standing privilege is becoming the wrong default for NHIs because it leaves reusable access alive beyond the task that needed it.
- The article cites 11 person-hours per identity alert on average and a 160% rise in credential theft, which explains why retrospective controls are losing ground.
- PAM programmes now need task-scoped issuance, expiry and lifecycle ownership for both machine and human privilege if they want to reduce blast radius.
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 and MITRE ATT&CK address the attack and risk surface, while NIST CSF 2.0 and NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 set the governance and control requirements practitioners need to meet.
| Framework | Control / Reference | Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| OWASP Non-Human Identity Top 10 | NHI-05 — Overprivileged NHI | Standing privilege and broad access are the central risk the article argues against. |
| NHI-07 — Long-Lived Secrets | The article emphasises short-lived tokens and expiry as the alternative to persistent credentials. | |
| NHI-01 — Improper Offboarding | Expired access and cleanup are core to preventing NHIs from retaining privilege after use. | |
| Recommendation — Reduce broad NHI entitlements by issuing task-scoped access and removing standing privilege. Replace long-lived secrets with short-lived credentials tied to workload runtime and revocation. Ensure NHI access is revoked automatically when the task or workload ends. | ||
| NIST CSF 2.0 | PR.AA-05 — Access Permissions, Entitlements and Authorizations | The article is fundamentally about governing privileged entitlements and their duration. |
| Recommendation — Enforce time-bound entitlements and review privileged authorizations for both people and workloads. | ||
| NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 | IA-5 — Authenticator Management | The article discusses issuing, rotating and retiring privileged credentials for NHIs. |
| Recommendation — Manage authenticators so privileged credentials are issued, rotated and retired on a controlled schedule. | ||
| MITRE ATT&CK | TA0006;TA0008 — Credential Access; Lateral Movement | The threat model in the article centres on stolen credentials being reused for broader access. |
| Recommendation — Map NHI credential exposure to Credential Access and hunt for downstream lateral movement. | ||
Key terms
- Just-in-Time Access Request: Just-in-Time Access Request is a pattern that grants access only when it is needed and only for the duration required. It reduces standing privilege by making access temporary, policy driven, and task scoped. This approach is especially useful for contractors, sensitive systems, and short-lived operational work.
- Standing Privilege: Standing privilege is access that remains active even when no immediate task requires it. For NHI programmes, it is a common failure mode because long-lived credentials and persistent roles create unnecessary exposure. Reducing standing privilege usually means tighter expiry, on-demand access, and clearer review of who or what still needs access.
- Machine Identity: The digital identity of a machine, device, or workload, such as a server, container, or VM, used to authenticate it within a network. Sometimes used interchangeably with NHI, though NHI is the broader category.
- Short-Lived Attested Credential: A short-lived attested credential is a token or certificate issued for a specific run or workload after the platform verifies who or what is asking. It reduces replay risk because the credential is only useful within a narrow window and is tied to claims that can be checked at runtime.
Deepen your knowledge
NHI governance, agentic AI identity, and machine identity lifecycle are core topics in our NHI Foundation Level course, the industry's only accredited NHI security programme. If you are building or maturing an IAM programme, it is worth exploring.
Published by the NHIMG editorial team on June 24, 2026.
Updated on October 6, 2026.
NHI Mgmt Group, the independent authority on Non-Human Identity, IAM, and Agentic AI security. nhimg.org