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14/05/2026 5:38 pm
TL;DR: Identity teams are running an average of 11 workforce identity security tools, while 44% of organisations use multiple PAM products and stolen credentials account for 31% of breaches, according to ESG and Verizon. Disconnected governance is now an access-control problem, not a tooling problem.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Saviynt: The Cost of Tool Sprawl for Privileged Access
By the numbers:
- The average enterprise runs 11 separate tools for workforce identity security alone.
- 44% of organizations run multiple PAM tools.
- 45% of organizations run multiple password management tools.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams reduce privileged access risk when identity tools are fragmented?
A: Start by mapping where governance, credential issuance, and session control are split across products.
Q: When does Zero Standing Privilege fail in practice?
A: Zero Standing Privilege fails when elevation is requested in one system, approved in another, and revoked somewhere else.
Q: What is the difference between converged identity governance and separate IGA and PAM tools?
A: Converged identity governance uses a shared policy engine, shared identity state, and one lifecycle workflow for privileged access.
Practitioner guidance
- Map privileged access handoffs end to end Document how identity changes move from provisioning to vaulting to session control, and identify where revocation or ownership changes do not propagate automatically.
- Test Zero Standing Privilege in real workflows Run access simulations that include approval, elevation, task completion, and automatic revocation across the full toolchain.
- Bring NHIs into the same governance model Include service accounts, API keys, tokens, certificates, and AI agents in privileged access reviews so they are not excluded from the same lifecycle controls as human admins.
Teams should watch how often revocation, ownership changes, and session data fall out of sync, because that is where control loss begins?
👉 Read Saviynt's analysis of tool sprawl and privileged access governance →
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14/05/2026 5:41 pm
A few things worth adding from our research at NHI Mgmt Group.
Identity tool sprawl is now a privileged access governance problem, not a procurement problem. The article correctly points out that multiple tools can leave gaps between governance, vaulting, and session control. That gap matters because access decisions rely on shared context, not isolated features. When the workflow is split, organisations inherit both duplication and blind spots. The practical conclusion is that privileged access should be governed as one lifecycle.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 97% of NHIs carry excessive privileges, increasing unauthorised access and broadening the attack surface, according to Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, which is why hidden privilege remains common across mature environments.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Why do non-human identities make privileged access governance harder?
A: NHIs scale faster than human accounts and are often created for automation, integrations, and AI agents, which makes them easy to forget and hard to review. If they sit outside the main governance model, they can keep broad privileges long after the original use case changed. That creates hidden access risk.
👉 Read our full editorial: Identity tool sprawl is breaking privileged access governance
