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19/08/2026 3:24 pm
TL;DR: Privileged access management still fails when organisations treat it as a tool purchase instead of an operating model: Gartner's report, via SSH Communications Security, says leaders should start with the fundamentals, focus on high-risk use cases, and mature controls over time. Persistent standing access, weak session visibility, and poor integration with IGA, SIEM, and ITSM remain the practical blockers.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by SSH Communications Security: Gartner report on five strategies for a successful PAM practice
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams reduce standing privilege in privileged access management?
A: Security teams should convert standing privilege into time-bound access that is granted only for a specific task and revoked immediately afterward.
Q: Why do PAM programmes need integration with IGA and SIEM?
A: PAM is strongest when entitlement, approval, execution, and detection are connected.
Q: What breaks when least privilege is applied only at review time?
A: Least privilege becomes a snapshot rather than a control.
Practitioner guidance
- Convert standing privileged access into just-in-time use cases Start with the highest-risk admin and support workflows, map where access is only needed for short tasks, and replace persistent rights with time-bound elevation tied to approved work.
- Build privileged session review into detection workflows Record and index privileged sessions, then route high-risk activity into SIEM and threat-hunting review so investigators can reconstruct what happened with elevated access.
- Remove reliance on personal privileged accounts Use a current account inventory to identify human-held privileged credentials, then move recurring tasks into governed accounts or task-scoped access paths with clear ownership.
What's in the full article
SSH Communications Security's full report covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- The five-strategy PAM roadmap and the order in which to tackle adoption gaps
- Practical guidance for converting standing access into just-in-time workflows
- Examples of the integrations that connect PAM to IGA, SIEM, ITSM, and change management
- The caution points and maturity measures Gartner associates with PAM progress
👉 Read SSH Communications Security's analysis of Gartner's five PAM strategies →
PAM visibility and JIT access: what IAM teams should change?
Explore further
19/08/2026 4:09 pm
PAM maturity is fundamentally a lifecycle problem, not a vault problem. The article's core message is that privileged access must be managed as a governed operating model across provisioning, review, rotation, and offboarding. That is why workflow design, not storage, determines whether privilege becomes auditable or merely hidden. For practitioners, the discipline is to manage the full privileged lifecycle rather than treat credential containment as the end state.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 88.5% of organisations acknowledge that their non-human IAM practices lag behind or are merely on par with their human identity and access management efforts, according to The 2024 Non-Human Identity Security Report.
- Only 19.6% of security professionals express strong confidence in their organisation's ability to securely manage non-human workload identities, which shows how far governance still trails operational need.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who is accountable for PAM governance across human and non-human access?
A: Accountability should sit with identity, platform, and security owners together, because privileged access crosses operational, technical, and audit boundaries. Human administrators, service accounts, and automated workflows all need different controls, but the same governance model has to define ownership, review cadence, and evidence retention.
👉 Read our full editorial: PAM maturity still hinges on privilege visibility and JIT access
