Agentless vs. Non-Agentless Access: Why Vaultless JIT Is the Only Path to True ZSP

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Enterprises increasingly recognize Zero Standing Privileges (ZSP) as the end-state objective for modern privileged access. In a world where cloud-native systems, DevOps automation, microservices, and agentic AI identities operate at high velocity, no security model that leaves standing privilege behind can scale or hold up under real attack pressure.

To achieve true ZSP, two conditions must be true at the same time:

1. No latent standing privilege – permissions should not exist between tasks or outside the authorized window.
2. Runtime authorization – permissions should be generated just-in-time (JIT), scoped to the exact task, and automatically removed afterward.

On paper, the model is simple. In practice, it is difficult — especially now that privileged identities include not just humans and service accounts, but also autonomous, always-on agentic AI systems capable of interacting across infrastructure continuously.

The point where most deployments fail is in confusing the control of credentials with the control of authorization.

Why Vault Rotation Alone Cannot Deliver Zero Standing Privileges

Secrets vaults and credential rotation matter, but they do not eliminate standing privilege if a permanent privileged principal must exist at the target system. For example:

• A cloud account with a permanent admin role
• A database with a shared administrator identity
• A persistent CI/CD service account with broad scope

Even if the credentials are time-boxed, refreshed, or brokered, the privileged identity still exists, and therefore so does the risk.

This is not Zero Standing Privileges.

True ZSP requires a shift from credential-centric control to permission-centric control:

• Access decisions occur at runtime
• Permissions are created at runtime
• Permissions expire automatically at runtime
• No privileged identity persists on the target

This model must operate without degrading access speed, introducing architectural drag, or slowing down cloud, DevOps, or AI-driven automation.

Agentless vs Non-Agentless: Why Architecture Determines ZSP Viability

ZSP cannot be realized if the access platform becomes a new bottleneck, dependency, or control chokepoint. The contrast between agentless and non-agentless architectures defines whether ZSP succeeds in real enterprise environments.

Agentless Infrastructure

An agentless model keeps the access platform out of the data path:

• No jump servers or session proxies
• No host or cluster agents to deploy and manage
• No custom connector libraries required for mapping systems

Instead, the platform uses native integrations to create and remove permissions directly on clouds, SaaS platforms, databases, and clusters. Sessions flow directly between the requester and the target, with no intermediary infrastructure to scale, patch, or harden.

As identities and projects grow, the operational footprint stays flat — because enforcement happens natively on systems the business already operates.

Non-Agentless Infrastructure

A non-agentless approach inserts mediation components into the access path:

• Session proxies / jump boxes
• Endpoint or cluster agents
• Connector projects for each system type

These deployments tend to begin simply and then expand into long-term operational overhead:

• Version compatibility and patch cycles for agents
• Proxy scaling and high-availability management
• Growing connector mapping as new platforms are added

The result is more components to secure, more configuration paths to review, and more places where a missed update can create a control gap.

The correlation is direct: the more complex the mediation layer, the more fragile the ZSP posture.

Where Vaults Still Matter — and Where They Don’t

Vaults remain valuable for secrets that truly must exist — particularly static credentials that cannot be made ephemeral due to legacy constraints. But vaults should not anchor the access model.

In a vaultless JIT authorization model:

• There is no permanent admin identity
• Permissions are minted only when approved
• Authorization expires automatically
• Baseline privilege returns to zero

Instead of gating a long-lived privileged credential, the system grants the precise permission required for the task, and removes it the moment the window closes.

How Vaultless JIT Makes ZSP Operationally Real

ZSP becomes practical when the access flow looks like this:

1. A user, service, or AI agent requests privileged access
2. Policy evaluates identity, purpose, context, and risk level, optionally requiring approval
3. If approved, a scoped and time-bound permission is created natively on the target
   Examples: AssumeRole (AWS), RoleBinding (Kubernetes), granular database grant
4. The requester connects directly to the target — no proxy in the data path
5. When the session ends or the clock expires, permissions are removed automatically

The difference from vaulted JIT is critical:

In vaultless JIT, permissions are born at approval and die on schedule, making credentials or tokens inert without matching authorization. And because no host agents or proxies mediate behavior, operational overhead and incident surface are dramatically reduced.

This model also solves the long-standing challenge of non-human and agentic AI identities. Automation can run at full speed without persistent, high-risk service accounts.

Scaling Access with a Practical, Real-World Path to ZSP

The goal isn’t to make access management look cleaner — it’s to erase privilege between tasks.

• Agentless architecture keeps the access platform out of the operational path and out of the critical incident surface.
• Vaultless JIT authorization ensures that permissions exist only during the approved window — then disappear automatically.

Together, they deliver:

• True Zero Standing Privileges
• Fast onboarding and rollout
• Minimal operational burden
• Compatibility with cloud, DevOps, and AI automation
• A measurable reduction in residual privilege risk

This is ZSP that holds up under real workloads, for humans, services, and AI systems — not ZSP as an abstract principle, but ZSP as a reliable, scalable operational reality.