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12/07/2026 12:23 pm
TL;DR: Privileged accounts are framed as the “ultimate keys” to infrastructure, data, and intellectual property, and the article argues that effective PAM depends on inventory, least privilege, zero trust, strong authentication, lifecycle controls, and continuous monitoring according to Securden. The governance lesson is that PAM is a programme discipline, not a tool purchase, and unmanaged privileged access still drives breach and compliance exposure.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Securden: best practices for implementing privileged account management
By the numbers:
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts.
- 97% of NHIs carry excessive privileges, increasing unauthorised access and broadening the attack surface.
- 71% of NHIs are not rotated within recommended time frames, increasing the risk of compromise over time.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams keep privileged account inventories current in mature PAM programs?
A: Security teams should treat privileged status as a continuously validated property, not a permanent label assigned at onboarding.
Q: Why do service accounts and other NHIs complicate GRC implementation?
A: NHIs complicate GRC because they often outnumber human accounts, change outside normal HR-driven lifecycle processes, and carry access that is easy to overlook in reviews.
Q: What breaks when privileged access is reviewed only on a calendar cycle?
A: Calendar-only review breaks down when access changes faster than the review period.
Practitioner guidance
- Inventory all privileged identities across the environment Classify human admins, service accounts, application identities, default accounts, and embedded secrets by owner, system reach, and criticality before enabling any policy automation.
- Remove standing privilege from high-risk accounts first Target domain administrators, cloud global admins, production database owners, and vendor access paths before extending JIT and ZSP more broadly.
- Bind rotation to lifecycle events Trigger credential rotation and revocation on role change, vendor offboarding, incident response, and inactivity, rather than relying only on calendar schedules.
What's in the full article
Securden's full post covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- Step-by-step privileged account inventory and discovery workflow across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid estates
- Policy templates for password rules, access approvals, session recording, and separation of duties
- Rollout guidance for phased PAM deployment and onboarding high-risk systems first
- Feature-by-feature breakdown of unified PAM, endpoint privilege management, vendor access, and CIEM
👉 Read Securden's guide to privileged account management best practices →
Privileged account management: are your controls keeping up?
Explore further
12/07/2026 12:36 pm
PAM is now an identity governance requirement, not a niche administrator control. The article correctly treats privileged access as the highest-consequence layer of identity security because it governs the accounts that can alter systems, data, and access itself. That includes human admins, service accounts, and application identities, which means PAM is inseparable from NHI governance and IAM maturity. Practitioners should treat privileged access as a governed lifecycle across all actor types, not as a separate technology island.
A few things that frame the scale:
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- 79% of organisations have experienced secrets leaks, and 77% of those incidents resulted in tangible damage.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who is accountable when an overprivileged account is compromised?
A: Accountability usually spans identity owners, application owners, and security governance because the failure is rarely one control alone. The organisation must decide who approves privilege, who reviews it, and who is responsible when a role outlives its business need. That ownership should be explicit for every privileged account class.
👉 Read our full editorial: Privileged account management now defines identity security maturity
