Topic starter
11/07/2026 8:23 pm
TL;DR: Privileged Access Management now has to govern both human administrators and non-human credentials, because exposed secrets, unmanaged service accounts, and overprivileged access create the same blast radius, according to Soffid. Standing privilege is the real problem: once access is persistent, monitored too late, or not inventoried, PAM becomes a visibility exercise instead of a control system.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Soffid: “Privileged Access Management (PAM): cómo reducir riesgos sin frenar al equipo”.
Key questions
Q: What breaks when privileged access is still standing instead of task-scoped?
A: Standing privilege gives attackers immediate value the moment a credential is stolen.
Q: Why do service accounts create more PAM risk than human admin accounts in multi-system environments?
A: Service accounts create more PAM risk because teams often do not know they exist, what they connect to, or which applications depend on them.
Q: How do teams know whether privileged access management is actually working?
A: A working privileged access programme produces fewer permanent elevated accounts, clearer ownership, and better monitoring of when high-risk access is used.
Practitioner guidance
- Map every privileged identity type Inventory human administrators, service accounts, application accounts, SSH keys, and API secrets as one privilege estate, then assign ownership and business purpose to each.
- Collapse standing access into JIT issuance Replace durable privileged entitlements with time-bound approval and automatic revocation so access exists only for the task that needs it.
- Bind audit trails to high-risk access Record sessions, commands, and sensitive actions for every privileged account, with separate handling for interactive users and non-human access traces.
Bottom line: Privileged access governance now has to cover both human administrators and non-human credentials, because persistent entitlement creates the same exposure pattern across both.
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11/07/2026 8:53 pm
Standing privilege is the structural flaw PAM now has to eliminate. The article makes clear that both people and non-human credentials become dangerous when access remains live after the task that justified it has ended. That is not a narrow tooling issue. It is a governance failure in how organisations define, time-bound, and retire privilege across the full identity estate. Practitioners should treat privilege duration as a control variable, not a convenience setting.
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.
- 49% of IT professionals would prioritise improving privileged access management if the decision were theirs alone, according to Netwrix's 2023 Hybrid Security Trends Report.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What should security teams do differently when PAM covers both humans and NHIs?
A: They should govern privilege as one lifecycle across both actor types, but enforce it differently at the access layer. Human access may involve approvals and sessions, while non-human access often depends on inventory, secret hygiene, and service ownership. The governance model stays unified even when the controls differ.
👉 Read our full editorial: Privileged access management is being reshaped by NHI governance