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08/06/2026 5:02 pm
TL;DR: Attack vectors are the paths adversaries use to gain unauthorized access, and StrongDM’s overview highlights how credentials, phishing, misconfigurations, trust relationships, and session hijacking remain common entry points. The operational lesson is that identity controls only reduce risk when they cover the entire access path, not just login events.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by StrongDM: What is an Attack Vector? 15 Common Attack Vectors to Know
By the numbers:
- 91% of organizations agree that authentication management solutions such as MFA are important to stopping credential theft and phishing attacks.
- The average cost of credential compromises to a business as a result of a passive attack vector has doubled since 2015 to $2.1 million per incident.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams reduce attack vectors in identity-heavy environments?
A: Start with the identities that can reach the most systems, then reduce standing privilege, eliminate unnecessary trust relationships, and require stronger verification for access that can be reused.
Q: Why do attack vectors keep working even when MFA is deployed?
A: MFA blocks some credential theft, but it does not stop every path that attackers use.
Q: What do security teams get wrong about third-party access risk?
A: They often treat vendor access as a one-time approval instead of a living trust relationship.
Practitioner guidance
- Inventory trust relationships across systems and vendors Catalogue every trusted connection, shared credential, and third-party integration so you can see where one compromise could fan out into multiple systems.
- Reduce standing privilege in human and NHI accounts Review service accounts, admin roles, and vendor access for unused permissions and long-lived access paths.
- Harden authentication against stolen credentials Combine strong password controls with MFA, secure storage, and phishing-resistant authentication where possible.
What's in the full article
StrongDM's full blog post covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- The full 15-vector breakdown, including phishing, SQL injection, XSS, and man-in-the-middle examples
- Practical mitigation notes for each vector, including password policies, patching, segmentation, and session protection
- The article's own view of how StrongDM's Zero Trust PAM platform fits into access management workflows
- Examples of how to apply access controls across servers, databases, clusters, and other connected resources
👉 Read StrongDM’s overview of 15 common attack vectors and identity risks →
Attack vectors and identity controls: where do teams still break down?
Explore further
08/06/2026 7:00 pm
Attack vectors are identity failures before they are malware failures. The strongest patterns in the article are credential theft, third-party access, trust relationships, and session hijacking, all of which are identity problems first. That matters because security teams often over-focus on endpoint or network symptoms after the attacker has already crossed the identity boundary. Practitioners should treat attack vectors as a map of where identity governance is weakest.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 92% of NHIs are exposed to third parties, raising concerns about supply chain security, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, which means most teams cannot confidently map NHI exposure before an attacker does.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How can organisations tell whether identity controls are actually working?
A: Look for evidence that compromise is contained rather than amplified. If a single stolen credential can reach multiple systems, or if sessions remain usable after anomalous activity, the control model is weak. Strong identity governance should make compromise harder to expand and easier to isolate.
👉 Read our full editorial: Attack vectors expose why identity controls fail at the edge
