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12/06/2026 9:06 pm
TL;DR: Zero standing privilege limits elevated access to the moment it is needed, reducing standing privilege, lateral movement, and exposure from static passwords and API tokens, according to Zluri. The deeper issue is that access models still fail when credentials outlive the task they were meant to support.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Zluri: Zero Standing Privilege guide
By the numbers:
- Only 20% have formal processes for offboarding and revoking API keys, and even fewer have procedures for rotating them.
- 97% of NHIs carry excessive privileges, increasing unauthorised access and broadening the attack surface.
- 71% of NHIs are not rotated within recommended time frames, increasing the risk of compromise over time.
Questions worth separating out
Q: What breaks when standing privilege is not removed for privileged users and service accounts?
A: Standing privilege breaks the assumption that access is only available when needed.
Q: Why do service accounts with permanent access increase lateral movement risk?
A: Service accounts with permanent access increase lateral movement risk because they often hold broad permissions across applications, infrastructure, and data.
Q: How do teams know whether zero standing privilege is actually working?
A: Teams should look for evidence that privileged access is time-bound, fully revoked, and impossible to reuse outside the approved session.
Practitioner guidance
- Inventory every standing privileged path Identify where admins, service accounts, shared accounts, and API tokens retain always-on access to production systems.
- Replace reusable secrets in elevation workflows Move privileged workflows away from passwords and API tokens that can be reused after approval.
- Automate task-bound revocation Tie approval, access issuance, and revocation into a single workflow so access ends when the work ends.
What's in the full article
Zluri's full guide covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- Step-by-step implementation guidance for mapping roles, policies, and temporary elevation workflows.
- Specific examples of how ZSP fits into DevOps tooling, ChatOps, SSH terminals, database clients, and IDEs.
- The article's comparison between zero standing privilege and least privilege, including the operational differences.
- Practical discussion of access control models such as DAC, MAC, and ACL in a ZSP context.
👉 Read Zluri's guide to zero standing privilege and access control →
Zero standing privilege: are your access controls really transient?
Explore further
12/06/2026 10:57 pm
Standing privilege is the control failure that ZSP is trying to erase, not merely reduce. The article correctly identifies that persistent elevation gives attackers more room to move once any credential is exposed. The deeper governance point is that IAM and PAM programmes still tolerate access models that assume privilege can remain continuously available without becoming a liability. Practitioners should treat standing privilege as an architectural defect, not a policy tuning problem.
A few things that frame the scale:
- Only 20% have formal processes for offboarding and revoking API keys, and even fewer have procedures for rotating them, according to Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- 91.6% of secrets remain valid five days after the targeted organisation is notified, showing a critical gap in remediation procedures.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who is accountable when zero standing privilege fails?
A: Accountability usually sits across IAM, PAM, infrastructure, and application owners because ZSP fails at the enforcement layer, not only in policy. The organisation is accountable for ensuring that approval, issuance, session control, and revocation all function as one control chain.
👉 Read our full editorial: Zero standing privilege and why static access keeps failing
