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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.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Soffid: ITDR keys for detecting privilege escalation paths and shadow admins
By the numbers:
- Lack of credential rotation is cited as the top cause of NHI-related attacks by 45% of organisations, followed by inadequate monitoring and logging (37%) and over-privileged accounts (37%).
Questions worth separating out
Q: What breaks when privilege escalation paths are not visible in IAM programmes?
A: When privilege paths are invisible, teams certify accounts instead of relationships, which leaves indirect access routes untouched.
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 tell whether ITDR is actually reducing escalation risk?
A: ITDR is working when it changes decisions, not when it only produces alerts.
Practitioner guidance
- Inventory privilege paths, not just privileged accounts Build an identity graph that shows how roles, groups, ACLs, and application entitlements connect accounts to sensitive systems.
- Reconcile shadow admins against named ownership Require every administrative identity to have a business owner, technical owner, and lifecycle state.
- Tie ITDR signals to PAM enforcement When a risky path or unusual elevation pattern appears, restrict standing privilege through PAM rather than waiting for a manual review cycle.
What's in the full article
Soffid's full article covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- Real-time ITDR mapping methods for tracking privilege paths across cloud and on-premise systems
- Examples of shadow admin detection using logs, ACL analysis, and privileged access controls
- The way Soffid says its ITDR layer integrates with AM, PAM, PM, and IGA modules
- Operational claims about reduced administrative burden and faster response workflows
👉 Read Soffid's analysis of privilege escalation paths and shadow admins →
Privilege escalation paths and shadow admins: are your controls keeping up?
Explore further
11/07/2026 9:12 pm
Privilege escalation paths are a governance graph problem, not just an access problem. The article correctly centres visibility because the real risk sits in how permissions connect, not in any single account standing alone. In practice, IAM teams fail when they review identities one by one and miss the relationship structure that allows low-trust access to reach critical systems. Practitioner conclusion: govern the path, not only the principal.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 85% of organisations lack full visibility into third-party vendors connected via OAuth apps, according to The State of Non-Human Identity Security.
- Lack of credential rotation is cited as the top cause of NHI-related attacks by 45% of organisations, with inadequate monitoring and logging and over-privileged accounts each named by 37%.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who should own hidden administrative access when shadow admins are discovered?
A: Ownership should sit with the team that can explain why the access exists and revoke it if needed, usually the system owner with identity governance oversight. If no owner can justify the privilege, the account should be treated as ungoverned access until proven otherwise.
👉 Read our full editorial: ITDR keys for detecting privilege escalation paths and shadow admins
