Topic starter
25/06/2026 12:20 am
TL;DR: Privileged access management audits are increasingly used to pressure-test whether organisations can control privileged accounts, including NHIs such as service accounts and API keys, as credential theft rose 160% in 2025 according to Apono. Standing privileges, weak logging, and poor offboarding turn PAM gaps into environment-wide exposure.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Apono: “9 Must Have Components for a Privileged Access Management Audit”.
Key questions
Q: What breaks when privileged NHIs are left out of PAM audits?
A: When privileged NHIs are excluded, audits miss the identities most likely to carry standing access into cloud consoles, pipelines, and SaaS admin planes.
Q: Why do privileged accounts create so much audit risk in regulated financial services?
A: Privileged accounts create audit risk because they concentrate high-impact access in a small number of identities, often across legacy systems, databases, and network devices.
Q: What signals indicate that PAM controls are not working for NHIs?
A: Signals include dormant privileged accounts that remain active, long-lived tokens that never expire, service accounts with broad permissions, and logs that cannot tie actions back to a single identity.
Practitioner guidance
- Inventory privileged NHIs across every control plane Build a live inventory that includes service accounts, API keys, machine identities, bots, and pipeline credentials, then assign an owner for each identity's lifecycle.
- Replace standing privilege with time-bound access Move privileged NHIs from static permissions into short-lived, task-scoped access with automatic expiry and revocation tied to session end or job completion.
- Tie privileged activity to identity-specific logs Centralise logs for privileged commands, configuration changes, and data access so each action can be attributed to a single identity during review or investigation.
Bottom line: PAM audits now have to cover privileged NHIs because service accounts, API keys, and machine identities can carry the same or greater blast radius as human admins.
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25/06/2026 9:14 am
Privileged NHI sprawl is now a PAM audit problem, not a side issue. PAM programmes were built to interrogate high-risk access, but many still assume the risky subject is a person. In cloud and SaaS estates, the more persistent risk often sits with service accounts, API keys, and machine identities that outnumber human identities and evade standard review cycles. The practical conclusion is that audit scope must follow privilege wherever it lives, not where the org chart says it should be.
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: How should security teams govern privileged access in cloud and hybrid environments?
A: Teams should govern privileged access around runtime authorization, not just connectivity or login. That means scoping elevation to a specific task, setting an expiry, logging approvals, and revoking access automatically when work is complete. The goal is to reduce standing privilege and create evidence that can withstand incident review and audit.
👉 Read our full editorial: PAM audits now have to account for privileged NHI sprawl