Topic starter
25/06/2026 12:46 am
TL;DR: Standing privilege leaves reusable access alive beyond the task that needed it, Apono says, as 11 person-hours per identity alert and a 160% rise in credential theft push PAM toward JIT controls. NHI access now needs expiry, scoping and lifecycle ownership to keep blast radius from widening.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Apono: “Top 10 Privileged Access Management Software Solutions”.
By the numbers:
- Identity-related alerts now consume 11 person-hours each on average, according to Apono.
- Credential theft rose 160% in 2025, according to Apono.
Key questions
Q: Why do short-lived credentials not solve NHI risk by themselves?
A: Short-lived credentials only shrink the exposure window.
Q: How do teams know if JIT access is actually working for NHIs?
A: JIT access is working when privileged requests are time-bound, approvals are traceable, sessions are observable and no NHI retains access after the task ends.
Q: What breaks when NHI credentials are overprivileged?
A: Overprivileged NHI credentials turn a single compromise into a larger access problem.
Practitioner guidance
- Define NHI privilege by task window Classify service accounts, APIs and bots by the jobs they perform, then issue access only for the duration of that job.
- Automate expiry for privileged access Set short-lived credentials and auto-expiring permissions as the default for high-value NHI workflows, especially where access supports cloud operations or DevOps jobs.
- Inventory machine identities with human admins Maintain a single view of privileged human and non-human identities so discovery, ownership and revocation follow one governance process.
Bottom line: Standing privilege is becoming the wrong default for NHIs because it leaves reusable access alive beyond the task that needed it.
Glossary terms: Standing Privilege, Just-in-Time Access Request, Machine Identity, Short-Lived Attested Credential
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This topic was modified 17 hours ago by NHI Mgmt Group
25/06/2026 9:45 am
JIT is becoming the control plane for NHI privilege, not a convenience feature. The article shows that persistent entitlement is increasingly misaligned with how cloud service accounts, APIs and bots actually operate. Once privilege is only issued for the task window, the attack surface becomes materially smaller and the governance model becomes enforceable rather than aspirational.
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.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Should security teams treat machine identities and human admins the same way in PAM?
A: They should govern both under the same privileged access discipline, but not with identical workflows. Human admin access may rely more on authentication and approval, while machine identities need runtime issuance, expiry and lifecycle ownership. The common requirement is that both be discoverable, scoped and auditable.
👉 Read our full editorial: Just-in-time access is overtaking standing privilege for NHIs
This post was modified 17 hours ago by NHI Mgmt Group