Topic starter
11/07/2026 8:45 pm
TL;DR: Privilege escalation and hidden administrative access create some of the hardest-to-see identity risks in IAM, because attackers can move from low-value accounts into critical systems through chained permissions, leaked credentials, and shadow admin rights, according to Soffid. Access reviews assume privilege is visible and stable; hidden paths break that assumption before governance can catch up.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Soffid: “ITDR keys: how to detect privilege escalation paths and shadow admins”.
Key questions
Q: What breaks when privilege paths are hidden from IAM reviews?
A: When privilege paths are hidden, recertification sees only the account list, not the routes that let access expand into administrative control.
Q: Why do shadow admins create more risk than ordinary over-privileged accounts?
A: Shadow admins are dangerous because the organisation may not recognise them as administrative at all, so they escape normal review, ownership, and offboarding processes.
Q: How can security teams measure whether local privilege escalation risk is actually controlled?
A: Track whether any privileged process executes from user-modifiable directories, whether ACLs on management paths are restrictive, and whether detections exist for script or DLL replacement between validation and load.
Practitioner guidance
- Map privilege escalation routes across domains Build route maps that show how low-privilege identities, inherited rights, and delegated permissions can converge on sensitive systems.
- Inventory shadow administrator access Compare administrative object ownership against effective permissions in Active Directory, cloud, and application layers to uncover hidden admins and orphaned rights.
- Monitor unusual privilege transitions in real time Alert on changes that create new escalation paths, especially when a non-administrative identity gains access to policy changes, account control, or key infrastructure.
Bottom line: Privilege escalation paths matter because the dangerous part is often the route between accounts, not the privileged account itself.
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11/07/2026 9:12 pm
Privilege path visibility is now the control boundary, not a reporting nicety. The article describes a world where escalation risk sits in the connections between accounts, not just in the accounts themselves. That means governance built only on entitlements will miss how access becomes dangerous. The practical conclusion is that identity programmes must treat routes, not only roles, as first-class security objects.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 83% of privilege escalation incidents involved no CVE exploitation, according to Verizon's 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What is the difference between a shadow admin and a formally assigned administrator?
A: A formally assigned administrator has documented ownership, approved scope, and traceable governance. A shadow admin has administrative effect without that accountability, even if the account looks legitimate in the directory or cloud console. The difference is not technical capability alone, but whether the organisation can justify, monitor, and revoke the access cleanly.
👉 Read our full editorial: ITDR keys for detecting privilege escalation paths and shadow admins