How Privilege Management Shapes the Future of Identity Security

Read full article from CyberArk here: https://www.cyberark.com/resources/all-blog-posts/the-next-chapter-of-identity-security-begins-with-privilege/?utm_source=nhimg

Privileged access management (PAM) was once simple: secure the credentials of a handful of administrators managing on-premises systems. Vault the passwords, rotate them regularly, and record every privileged session.

That approach worked in a world with clear boundaries and predictable users. That world is now a museum piece.

Privilege Has Evolved

Privilege is no longer just a set of credentials to protect. It’s now a dynamic web of entitlements, identities, and automated actions spanning every layer of modern IT.

Every developer, workload, and AI agent holds a piece of your infrastructure’s power. Multi-cloud platforms, Kubernetes clusters, CI/CD pipelines, and SaaS applications all create new privilege relationships, each representing a potential point of compromise.

When identity is the last real perimeter, privilege becomes the control plane that defines your risk surface.

The Identity Security Shift

Yesterday’s IAM tools are insufficient for today’s environments. Modern identity security requires both technological innovation and a new mindset.

Consider the AI-driven environment of today:

• Human identities: Developers, admins, and platform engineers require short-term, project-specific elevated access.
• Machine identities: Applications, workloads, and pipelines continuously request secrets, tokens, and credentials, often with high privilege.
• AI systems: LLM-powered agents now issue commands, generate code, and access data autonomously.

Managing this diverse cast of identities with outdated models is like running a modern airport with 1950s-era air traffic control. Speed is essential—but speed without precision creates risk.

Privilege: Both Weapon and Defense

Privilege powers innovation—and attackers. Credentials, compromised identities, and standing entitlements remain the most common causes of breaches. Every standing entitlement increases the blast radius of a single compromise.

Modern operations exacerbate the problem: developers bypass slow approval processes, secrets are copied into scripts, and roles remain over-provisioned. Convenience chips away at control, and lack of control chips away at cybersecurity.

Why Standing Privileges Must Go

The principle of least privilege (PoLP) is sound, but persistent standing entitlements create risk. Even rarely used privileges are always “on,” waiting to be exploited.

Zero Standing Privileges (ZSP) is a radical shift:

• No identity—human, machine, or AI—has default permissions.
• Access is granted dynamically for the specific task using passwordless authentication.
• Permissions are revoked immediately upon task completion.

ZSP + Just-in-Time (JIT) access + passwordless methods provide a modern foundation:

• Eliminates dormant entitlements that attackers could exploit.
• Grants privileges only when needed.
• Reduces credential risks with technologies like passkeys, QR codes, or biometrics.

This approach is no longer optional—it’s foundational for the next era of identity security.

AI, Automation, and the New Privileged Frontier

Autonomous systems, agents, and APIs create invisible privileges:

• Unrestricted data access
• Automated model updates
• Execution environments spanning multiple clouds

Traditional PAM controls weren’t designed for this dynamic landscape. AI and privilege management are converging: systems will dynamically consume and govern access, making real-time trust decisions based on context, behavior, and risk.

Unifying Control: One Platform of Trust

Privilege isn’t just a human problem. When machines make access decisions, who’s really in control? Security today is siloed. Tomorrow requires convergence:

• Protect legacy systems with proven vaulting and session management
• Secure cloud-native workloads with ephemeral, dynamic access
• Provide consistent experiences for IT admins, developers, and engineers

A unified platform enforces modern ZSP and JIT models alongside traditional PAM controls, balancing security and operational simplicity.

Securing the Future of Privilege

Privilege has evolved from static credentials to the connective tissue of modern IT. The next evolution is not just technical—it’s a question of architecting trust itself.

The right approach:

• Secure every identity—human, machine, or AI
• Enable speed and innovation, not friction
• Treat privilege as the central control plane for your organization

The future of privilege isn’t about control for its own sake—it’s about empowering teams to innovate safely and securely. This evolution isn’t distant; it’s happening now.