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30/07/2026 10:51 pm
TL;DR: Privilege escalation can turn a low-privilege compromise into access to critical resources, and the article cites Microsoft data that 40% of studied vulnerabilities fell into this category, while NHIMG reports 97% of NHIs hold excessive privileges. That combination shows IAM strategy fails when privilege boundaries are not enforced in practice.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Soffid: Privilege Escalation: The Invisible Risk in Your IAM Strategy
By the numbers:
- The privilege escalation category accounted for 40% of the vulnerabilities studied.
- 97% of NHIs have excessive privileges.
Questions worth separating out
Q: What breaks when privilege creep is left unchecked in IAM programmes?
A: When privilege creep is left unchecked, access no longer matches business need, so users and service accounts retain capabilities that should have expired.
Q: Why do excessive privileges increase escalation risk for NHIs?
A: NHIs often accumulate permissions for convenience, automation, or legacy workflows, then keep them long after the original need has passed.
Q: How can security teams tell whether privileged access reviews are actually working?
A: They are working when every privileged entitlement is inventoried, every decision is traceable, and revoked access is removed from all connected systems without delay.
Practitioner guidance
- Inventory effective privilege paths Map how low-privilege accounts can reach sensitive resources through groups, inherited roles, service accounts, and shared tokens.
- Remove excessive permissions from NHIs and standard users Prioritise the accounts with broad access that is not required for day-to-day operation.
- Audit indirect paths before privilege reviews Examine nested groups, inherited entitlements, and transitive access chains before recertification.
What's in the full article
Soffid's full article covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- The article's examples of how privilege escalation emerges from improperly configured accounts and default settings
- The IAM, PAM, and monitoring controls Soffid groups together as a defence model
- How its access management, privileged access, and ITDR components are positioned across identities
- The article's cross-sector examples and product context for organisations planning implementation
👉 Read Soffid's analysis of privilege escalation in IAM strategy →
Privilege escalation in IAM: are your controls catching the hidden path?
Explore further
30/07/2026 10:57 pm
Privilege escalation is an IAM architecture failure before it is an attack technique. The article is right to frame escalation as a boundary-crossing problem, but the deeper issue is that many IAM models still assume permissions stay where they were originally assigned. Once excess privilege, default access, or inherited paths exist, the control plane is already too permissive. The practitioner conclusion is simple: privilege boundaries must be treated as enforceable architecture, not documentation.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 97% of NHIs have excessive privileges, according to The State of Non-Human Identity Security.
- 85% of organisations lack full visibility into third-party vendors connected via OAuth apps, according to The State of Non-Human Identity Security.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who is accountable when a compromised identity is used for intrusion and exfiltration?
A: Accountability sits with the teams that own identity lifecycle, access governance, and incident response, because they control the evidence needed to confirm abuse and the controls needed to limit it. Frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK, NIST incident handling guidance, and zero trust principles all assume identity events can be observed and acted on.
👉 Read our full editorial: Privilege escalation exposes the hidden weakness in IAM strategy
