Notifications
Clear all
Topic starter
08/07/2026 6:55 pm
TL;DR: Windows Active Directory still anchors many on-premises environments, but its password-first model, missing MFA and limited session controls leave organisations exposed to theft, privilege abuse, and poor visibility, according to IS Decisions. The real issue is not whether AD still works, but whether it can meet modern identity governance expectations without added controls.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by IS Decisions: Active Directory security gaps are pushing IAM toward overlays
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams strengthen Active Directory without replacing it?
A: They should keep AD as the directory backbone but add controls that it does not provide natively: MFA, contextual access policies, session monitoring, and tighter privilege elevation checks.
Q: Why do passwords make Active Directory harder to secure than modern identity systems?
A: Because a password only proves that someone knows a secret, not that the current session is still trustworthy.
Q: What breaks when concurrent sessions are not controlled in Active Directory?
A: Credential sharing becomes harder to spot, attacker movement becomes easier to hide, and admins lose a reliable view of which sessions belong to which identity.
Practitioner guidance
- Add MFA in front of high-risk AD authentication paths Prioritise privileged logins, remote access, and SaaS sign-in paths that still depend on AD trust.
- Constrain concurrent sessions for privileged identities Block or terminate duplicate sessions where one account should not be active across multiple systems at once.
- Introduce contextual policy for legacy directory access Base approval on user, group, device, IP address, time of day, and session type rather than relying on binary allow or deny logic.
What's in the full article
IS Decisions' full article covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- The specific on-premise MFA flow for Windows logins and how administrators apply policy to different user groups.
- The session control mechanics for blocking, forcing logoff, or locking concurrent connections in real time.
- How the product handles conditional access inputs such as device, IP address, time of day, and session type.
- The real-time monitoring dashboard details that surface repeated denials, locked account attempts, and mid-session credential switches.
👉 Read IS Decisions' analysis of Active Directory security gaps and modern controls →
Active Directory security gaps: what IAM teams need to fix?
Explore further
08/07/2026 7:17 pm
Active Directory exposes a trust model built for a different era. The platform assumes password validation is enough to establish identity, and that assumption fails once credentials are routinely stolen and reused. That is not a feature gap alone, it is a governance premise that no longer matches how access is attacked. The implication is that identity assurance in hybrid estates cannot start and end with the directory itself.
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.
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, which shows how quickly identity inventory gaps turn into control gaps.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who is accountable when legacy directory access needs stronger controls?
A: IAM, security architecture, and infrastructure teams usually share accountability, but the business owner remains responsible for accepting the risk of continued AD dependence. Frameworks such as the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 and NIST SP 800-207 Zero Trust Architecture both support stronger identity assurance and continuous verification across hybrid environments.
👉 Read our full editorial: Active Directory security gaps are pushing IAM toward overlays
