Topic starter
07/06/2026 9:06 pm
TL;DR: Traditional PAM still leaves gaps in onboarding, offboarding, auditability, and cloud-native access, while 64% of organizations report productivity losses from infrastructure access friction, according to StrongDM. The deeper issue is that legacy PAM often treats privileged access as a bounded admin problem, not a broader governance layer across databases, Kubernetes, and modern workflows.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by StrongDM: “CyberArk vs. BeyondTrust: Which PAM Solution is Better?”.
By the numbers:
- 64% of organizations struggle with productivity due to infrastructure access, according to StrongDM.
Key questions
Q: What breaks when PAM only governs one vault in a multi-vault environment?
A: The programme loses a unified view of ownership, active usage, and lifecycle state.
Q: Why does privileged access create productivity friction in modern infrastructure teams?
A: Because the more systems a team must touch, the more manual approvals, credential handoffs, and tool-specific steps accumulate.
Q: How do security teams know if PAM is actually working?
A: Look for evidence that elevated rights are short-lived, session activity is logged, and access reviews result in real removals rather than paperwork.
Practitioner guidance
- Define the full privileged access graph Inventory where administrative access exists across databases, servers, Kubernetes, cloud consoles, and remote support tools, then map the approval and logging path for each.
- Rework joiner-mover-leaver handling for privileged access Test whether one onboarding or offboarding action truly revokes access across every dependent system, including SSH keys, database credentials, VPN access, and remote admin paths.
- Require action-level audit evidence Validate that the PAM stack captures database queries, shell commands, kubectl actions, and permission changes, not just session metadata or login events.
Bottom line: Legacy PAM can control sessions without fully governing the lifecycle of privileged access across modern infrastructure.
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This topic was modified 4 days ago by NHI Mgmt Group
08/06/2026 8:54 am
Legacy PAM is now a lifecycle governance problem, not a vaulting problem. The article is right to focus on onboarding, offboarding, and auditability because those are the controls that decide whether privileged access remains bounded in practice. When privileged access spans databases, servers, and Kubernetes, the question is not whether a vault exists but whether access follows the full identity lifecycle. Practitioners should evaluate PAM as an access governance layer, not a point product.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 97% of NHIs carry excessive privileges, increasing unauthorised access and broadening the attack surface, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Should organisations prioritise lifecycle access governance over feature comparisons in PAM?
A: Yes. Feature checklists matter, but they do not answer whether privileged access is being created, changed, and removed cleanly across the real infrastructure stack. Lifecycle governance determines whether a PAM programme will remain accurate after the first deployment wave.
👉 Read our full editorial: CyberArk vs BeyondTrust exposes the limits of legacy PAM
This post was modified 4 days ago by NHI Mgmt Group