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08/06/2026 4:52 pm
TL;DR: Weak passwords remain a common attack vector, and the article argues that rotation, MFA, least privilege, monitoring, and secure recovery are the controls that reduce exposure, according to StrongDM. The deeper issue is that password hygiene fails when access governance, not user behaviour alone, determines whether compromise turns into lateral movement.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by StrongDM: 13 Password Management Best Practices to Know in 2026
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams reduce the risk of password reuse across systems?
A: Start by identifying where the same credential unlocks multiple applications, admin paths, or infrastructure resources.
Q: Why do password controls fail when privilege is too broad?
A: Because password strength does not matter if the authenticated account already has more reach than it needs.
Q: How can organisations tell whether password recovery is too weak?
A: Look for recovery flows that can restore access without strong identity proof, clear approval, or complete logging.
Practitioner guidance
- Tie password policy to privilege scope Review which accounts still carry broad standing access, then reduce their reach before tightening password complexity rules.
- Eliminate shared credentials wherever possible Replace shared logins with identity-based temporary access so audit trails remain attributable and revocation works cleanly when staff or contractors change roles.
- Harden recovery paths before changing rotation cadence Treat reset, support override, and account recovery flows as privileged operations.
What's in the full article
StrongDM's full blog post covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- Step-by-step explanations of each password management practice across storage, rotation, MFA, and recovery
- Implementation examples for applying password controls across databases, servers, and cloud infrastructure
- Product-specific guidance on secret storage, audit logging, and temporary access workflows
- The article's own framing of how its access model supports password-related governance in practice
👉 Read StrongDM's 13 password management best practices for 2026 →
Password management in 2026: where IAM teams still lose control?
Explore further
08/06/2026 6:44 pm
Password management has become a governance issue, not a hygiene issue. The controls in this article only work when identity teams treat credentials as access-bearing assets with lifecycle, privilege, and monitoring requirements. That is the same structural logic NHI programmes apply to service accounts and secrets, which is why password policy and NHI governance are converging. Practitioners should manage passwords as part of identity control design, not as a user compliance campaign.
A few things that frame the scale:
- Only 1.5 out of 10 organisations are highly confident in their ability to secure NHIs, compared to nearly 1 in 4 for securing human identities, according to The State of Non-Human Identity Security.
- Confidence gaps are not just perception issues. In the same research, 85% of organisations lack full visibility into third-party vendors connected via OAuth apps, which is a control problem, not a tooling problem.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What should organisations do when passwords are still needed for critical access?
A: Keep them in a controlled vault, limit how often they are exposed, and pair them with temporary access and continuous audit logging. If passwords remain part of the workflow, their use must be constrained by entitlement scope and recovery discipline. The objective is to make every credential ephemeral in practice, even if the format is still a password.
👉 Read our full editorial: Password management best practices still hinge on access governance
