How should organisations start building a privileged access management programme when privileged accounts are already widespread and partly unmanaged?

Start with visibility before control depth

The first move is not buying tooling, it is making privileged access visible enough to govern. If privileged accounts are already widespread, the programme has to begin with discovery, inventory, and ownership mapping across on premises, cloud, directory, and application contexts. That includes administrators, service accounts, break-glass accounts, shared accounts, and any account that can change security posture or data exposure. A practical starting point is to treat visibility as the control boundary and build from there using a structured identity security programme rather than an isolated admin access project.

Once those accounts are found, classify them by business purpose and by the level of privilege they actually exercise. The important question is not only who holds access, but whether that access is still needed, whether it is shared, and whether the account can be removed, rotated, or converted to a less persistent model. This is where organisations often discover that unmanaged privileged access is really an ownership problem as much as a technical one.

Turn the inventory into control priorities

After discovery, the programme needs a triage model. Some privileged accounts deserve immediate tightening because they are exposed, shared, long lived, or capable of broad system impact. Others may need redesign, but not urgent interruption. That distinction matters because a PAM programme fails when it tries to standardise everything at once and loses momentum on the accounts with the largest blast radius. The most useful next step is to prioritise by risk, not by org chart.

In practice, the highest priority is usually to reduce standing privilege where possible, then add stronger controls around the accounts that must remain powerful. That typically means vaulting or rotating secrets, requiring approval for elevation, and moving administrative access toward just in time models for just-in-time access and zero standing privilege. For cloud and platform estates, the same logic applies to effective permissions and escalation paths, which is why a cloud PAM and CIEM approach is often needed alongside traditional PAM.

Build PAM as a programme with ownership, not a tool deployment

A workable PAM programme needs defined ownership, recurring review, and a clear operating model. Security can lead the design, but infrastructure, application owners, cloud platform teams, and identity administrators all need named responsibilities for inventory accuracy, approvals, exceptions, and lifecycle handling. If those responsibilities are not explicit, privileged access becomes a shared assumption that no one truly governs.

The implementation sequence should reflect that reality. Start with the accounts that are most sensitive or easiest to standardise, define the minimum control requirements for each class of privilege, and create review cycles that keep the inventory current. For many organisations, a practical programme also needs a dedicated approach for emergency access, so break-glass use remains available but observable and tightly controlled. A good reference point is the Break-Glass and Emergency Access Account Guide, because emergency access is often where unmanaged privilege reappears if it is not designed deliberately.

Risk and Threat Considerations

Widespread, partly unmanaged privileged access creates exposure in two directions: accidental misuse and attacker abuse. Uncontrolled admin paths make it easier for excess privilege to persist, for dormant accounts to be forgotten, and for compromised credentials to produce broad impact quickly. In mature environments, the concern is not only who has access today, but how fast an attacker or an internal error could turn one overlooked account into widespread compromise.

Failure mechanism: Privileged accounts remain outside consistent lifecycle controls, so excessive permissions, shared use, stale credentials, or weak emergency access paths persist long enough to be exploited or misused.

Impact: The organisation inherits hidden administrative reach, weak accountability, and a larger blast radius for privilege escalation, data exposure, service disruption, and recovery complexity.

Practitioner Guidance

What to prioritise: Start with the privileged accounts that can alter production, security, or cloud control planes, then move outward to lower-impact admin and service accounts. If an account can change trust boundaries, it belongs in the first wave of control.

What to verify: You should be able to answer four questions for every privileged account: who owns it, what it is for, whether it is still needed, and how access is granted, reviewed, and revoked. If any of those answers are missing, treat the account as a programme defect rather than a minor exception.

Practitioner takeaway: The fastest path to a credible PAM programme is not full standardisation on day one, but disciplined visibility, ownership, and prioritisation of the privileged accounts that create the greatest operational and security risk.

Related resources from NHI Mgmt Group

• How should organisations evaluate password management in environments with shared accounts and privileged access?
• How should organisations implement privileged access management to control administrator, service, and root accounts without slowing operations?
• What should organisations do when standard user accounts start to behave like privileged access paths in Active Directory?
• Should organisations consolidate secret management and privileged access into one platform?