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24/06/2026 11:57 pm
TL;DR: Standing privileges, hardcoded tokens, and slow approval loops keep expanding attack paths in cloud-native environments, while 58% of security leaders expect identities to grow further in the next year, according to Apono’s analysis. JIT PAM matters because access review assumes privilege lasts long enough to be governed; in practice, it often persists until it is already abused.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Apono: 7 Tips for Just-in-Time Privileged Access Management You Need to Implement Today
By the numbers:
- 58% of security leaders expect the number of identities, human and non-human, to grow in the next year.
- Non-human identities now outnumber human ones by more than 80 to 1.
- Only 20% have formal processes for offboarding and revoking API keys, and even fewer have procedures for rotating them.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams implement just-in-time privileged access for cloud workloads?
A: Start by removing standing admin paths and replacing them with request-based, time-scoped access that expires automatically.
Q: Why do standing privileges create so much risk in cloud and CI/CD environments?
A: Standing privileges create durable attack paths because they survive beyond the original business need.
Q: How do you know if JIT privileged access is actually working?
A: Look for a shrinking number of always-on elevated accounts, fewer dormant roles, and complete records showing who requested access, who approved it, and when it expired.
Practitioner guidance
- Audit standing privilege across humans and machines Run a full entitlement review across AWS roles, Kubernetes namespaces, service accounts, CI/CD tokens, and admin roles, then classify every privilege that persists beyond the task it was created for.
- Convert recurring admin access into time-bound sessions Replace always-on elevated accounts with ephemeral credentials issued through policy at request time, and make automatic revocation the default when the session ends.
- Apply the same control model to CI/CD and production workloads Treat pipelines, deployment jobs, and service accounts as governed identities that need the same least-privilege and expiry rules as human operators.
What's in the full article
Apono's full article covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- Step-by-step patterns for moving from standing privileges to request-based access in cloud environments.
- Examples of how the vendor applies JIT to CI/CD, production systems, and emergency break-glass workflows.
- Practical approval flow ideas for teams using Slack, Microsoft Teams, or command-line access requests.
- Implementation guidance on combining automated expiry with audit logging and compliance evidence.
👉 Read Apono's guide to just-in-time privileged access best practices →
Just-in-time privileged access management: are your controls keeping up?
Explore further
25/06/2026 8:46 am
Standing privilege is the failure mode, not merely a bad habit. JIT PAM matters because the environment now assumes every identity can be granted and revoked on demand, but many programmes still rely on access that persists after the task ends. That breaks least privilege at the point where operations are most dynamic, especially in cloud-native estates with service accounts and automation. The practitioner conclusion is simple: persistent access is the control gap JIT is trying to eliminate.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 91.6% of secrets remain valid five days after the targeted organisation is notified, showing a critical gap in remediation procedures, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, which is why temporary access controls fail if the underlying identity estate is not mapped first.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who is accountable when temporary privileged access is misused?
A: Accountability should sit with both the identity owner and the access policy owner, because JIT only works when request, approval, and expiry are all governed. If a temporary credential is misused, the failure is usually in the lifecycle rules, not only in the requester’s behaviour.
👉 Read our full editorial: Just-in-time privileged access is the fix for access drift
