How to Manage Break Glass Accounts Securely: A Best Practices Guide

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In modern multi-cloud environments, Break Glass Account Management has become one of the most critical aspects of privileged access security. Break glass accounts, also called emergency or global admin accounts are designed for last-resort scenarios, such as outages or incidents, where standard administrative access fails. While essential for business continuity and disaster recovery, these accounts pose significant security risks if mismanaged.

Misuse or compromise of a break glass account with static, highly privileged access can enable attackers to bypass security controls, escalate privileges, and move laterally across cloud environments. The result? Catastrophic breaches, data exposure, and loss of compliance. That’s why implementing privileged access management (PAM) best practices is non-negotiable for organizations handling sensitive data in AWS, Azure, GCP, and hybrid cloud infrastructures.

The Challenge of Break Glass in Multi-Cloud

Every cloud service provider uses unique identity and access models, making policy enforcement, visibility, and auditing complex. A single misconfiguration in one environment can introduce vulnerabilities across the entire enterprise footprint. To mitigate this, organizations must unify access management policies and tools to maintain visibility and minimize blind spots.

Break Glass Account Management Best Practices

To secure break glass accounts while ensuring availability in emergencies, organizations should adopt the following practices:

• Minimal Use & Limited Access - Restrict use strictly to emergencies and enforce monitoring.
• Strong Authentication & MFA - Add layers of protection for emergency logins.
• Isolation & Monitoring - Separate break glass accounts from regular admin accounts and monitor continuously.
• Approval & Audit Workflows - Enforce documented approvals and log all usage for accountability.
• Eliminate Standing Privileges - Adopt just-in-time (JIT) access to grant privileges only when required and revoke them automatically.
• Periodic Testing - Regularly validate that break glass accounts function during real emergencies.
• Separation of Duties - Divide responsibilities for initiating, approving, and using break glass accounts.
• Review & Audit - Perform regular compliance checks and SOC 2 audits on privileged accounts.

How Britive Enhances Break Glass Security

Britive’s Cloud PAM platform simplifies break glass account management by:

• Enforcing dynamic JIT access, eliminating standing privileges.
• Providing cross-cloud visibility from a single platform for AWS, GCP, Azure, and hybrid networks.
• Automating privilege revocation and credential expiration.
• Streamlining compliance by centralizing logs and enabling real-time oversight.

By unifying privileged access policies across clouds, Britive reduces attack surfaces, mitigates permission drift, and ensures compliance with SOC 2, NIST, and other regulatory frameworks.

Final Thoughts

Break glass accounts are both a lifeline and a liability. Without strict PAM best practices, they can undermine even the most advanced security programs. Organizations that embrace multi-cloud security, just-in-time privileged access, and centralized identity visibility are best positioned to keep emergency admin accounts secure, auditable, and compliant.