ARCON is an identity security vendor best known for privileged access management (PAM), with a converged platform that also covers identity governance, endpoint privilege management, cloud entitlements, secrets and digital asset management, and machine identities. The company serves enterprises in more than 25 countries and has a strong presence in banking, government and critical infrastructure, particularly across Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Europe. ARCON now describes its platform as Runtime Privilege Security: replacing standing privilege with just-in-time, just-enough access for administrators, employees, vendors, machines and AI agents, granted for a specific task and revoked when it ends. This overview explains how the platform works and what it covers, based on ARCON’s public product information and announcements.
At A Glance
| Vendor | ARCON, serving enterprises in more than 25 countries |
|---|---|
| Category | Privileged access management, converged identity (IGA and access management), endpoint privilege management, CIEM, machine identity and secrets management |
| Identities covered | Privileged administrators, employees, third-party vendors, service accounts, APIs, applications, workloads, bots, and AI agents |
| Deployment | On-premises, cloud and SaaS; microservices-based architecture |
| Infrastructure covered | Operating systems, databases, web servers, network and telecom equipment, OT and IoT devices, business applications and cloud platforms |
| Analyst recognition | Challenger, 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Privileged Access Management; Overall Leader, Innovation Leader and Product Leader, 2023 KuppingerCole Leadership Compass for CIEM |
What The Platform Does
ARCON’s portfolio is built as modules on a common platform, so that organisations can combine privileged access, governance, endpoint and machine identity controls under one policy and audit framework. ARCON describes this as its Converged Identity strategy.
Privileged Access Management
ARCON PAM controls and monitors access to privileged accounts across the IT estate. Its main capabilities include:
| Credential vault | Stores, randomises and rotates passwords, SSH keys and secrets for privileged accounts, with automated retrieval for authorised sessions |
|---|---|
| Session management | Brokers privileged sessions so that users never see the underlying credentials, and records sessions for audit and investigation |
| Just-in-time access | Grants privileged access for a defined task or time window instead of standing privileges |
| Multi-factor and adaptive authentication | Applies additional verification based on user, device and context |
| Single sign-on | Supports OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect and SAML for web, legacy on-premises and cloud applications |
| Knight Analytics | Machine-learning based user behaviour analytics that baseline privileged activity and flag anomalies |
ARCON PAM covers operating systems, databases, web servers, network and telecom equipment, security systems, and OT and IoT devices. For operational technology, ARCON applies the same controls to privileged access to industrial systems and connected devices, with the aim of supporting IT-OT convergence without disrupting operations.
Converged Identity
ARCON Converged Identity combines identity administration, access management, governance and privileged access in a single natively built suite. It handles provisioning and deprovisioning, access workflows, adaptive authentication and reporting from one control point. A related Identity Verification capability supports one-time passwords, hardware tokens, biometrics, facial recognition and contextual authentication based on behaviour, device and location.
Endpoint Privilege Management
ARCON EPM removes persistent local administrator rights and grants just-in-time elevation only for approved applications and tasks, with application-level controls and suspicious-user monitoring. File Integrity Monitoring, integrated with EPM, detects unauthorised changes to system, configuration and user files against established baselines, and can roll those changes back.
Cloud Governance (CIEM)
ARCON Cloud Governance provides visibility of identities, permissions and entitlements across multi-cloud environments. It offers centralised dashboards, entitlement discovery, access inspection, policy enforcement and recommendations for removing unnecessary or excessive access.
Compliance And Configuration
ARCON Security Compliance Management automates security assessment against baseline configurations and reports compliance gaps; ARCON states that its assessment and exception management spans more than 3,000 controls. Drift Management detects configuration changes that deviate from approved baselines so they can be remediated.
Other Modules
The wider portfolio includes Global Remote Access, which gives administrators controlled remote connectivity to machines on the enterprise network, and Data Access Governance. ARCON also provides consultation, implementation and post-implementation support.
Runtime Privilege Security
Runtime Privilege Security is ARCON’s framework for eliminating standing privilege across human, machine, cloud, application and AI agent identities. Rather than granting persistent access, ARCON describes evaluating identity, context, intent, policy and risk to grant just-in-time, just-enough privilege for a specific task. Access is monitored while in use, adjusted if risk changes, and revoked automatically when the task ends. ARCON positions Runtime Privilege Security as bringing PAM, EPM, IGA, MFA, CIEM, secrets management, compliance and behaviour analytics into one lifecycle.
Machine Identity, Secrets And Digital Assets
ARCON addresses non-human identities such as service accounts, APIs, applications, workloads, bots and automated processes through several related products.
Digital Vault And Secrets Management
ARCON Digital Vault and Secrets Management store and manage the credentials used by applications, containers, automation tools, RPA bots and CI/CD pipelines. Documented capabilities include:
- Generating, vaulting and randomising credentials for non-human identities
- Securing passwords, API keys, SSH keys, certificates and OAuth tokens
- Authenticating applications and containers using native application attributes and role-based access control
- Brokering trust between non-human identities for machine-to-machine and application-to-application communication
- Providing secrets to workloads across multiple cloud platforms
Machine Identity & Access Management
ARCON MIAM extends privileged access controls to machine identities, covering visibility, authentication, authorisation and lifecycle governance. It vaults credentials, brokers sessions on behalf of machines, issues short-lived access instead of standing credentials, and records machine activity so that every action is accountable.
Secure Data Vault And My Vault
ARCON Secure Data Vault protects sensitive enterprise data using hardware security module (HSM) backed security, tokenisation and governance, extending controls from identities to the data itself. ARCON My Vault is an encrypted repository for files, secrets and credentials, deployable in the cloud or on-premises, with granular permissions, ownership transfer, secure file transfer, controlled sharing and audit logs.
How The Architecture Works
| Component | What it does |
|---|---|
| Common platform | ARCON’s modules share a common policy engine, credential vault, audit trail and reporting engine, so that controls for human, privileged and machine identities can be managed together. |
| Brokered access | Users, vendors and machines connect to target systems through ARCON rather than directly. ARCON retrieves the credential from the vault, establishes the session and records it, which keeps credentials out of the hands of the person or process using them. |
| Deployment options | ARCON can be deployed on-premises, which suits regulated and air-gapped environments, in the cloud, or as SaaS. ARCON describes its architecture as microservices-based, designed for scalability and customisation. |
| Connector marketplace | ARCON maintains an online marketplace of connectors for integrating its platform with target systems, applications and security tools. |
Integrations
| Area | Documented coverage |
|---|---|
| Infrastructure | Windows, Linux and Unix servers, databases, web servers, network and telecom devices |
| OT and IoT | Industrial systems and connected devices |
| Applications | Web, legacy on-premises and cloud applications, via OAuth 2.0, OIDC and SAML |
| Cloud | Multi-cloud environments for secrets management and cloud entitlement governance |
| DevOps | CI/CD pipelines, container platforms, automation tools and RPA bots |
| Connectors | ARCON connector marketplace |
Use Cases And Industries
ARCON publishes use cases for privileged access control, third-party and remote vendor access, insider threat prevention, endpoint least privilege, cloud entitlement governance, secrets management for applications and workloads, securing OT environments, continuous compliance and identity governance. It supports compliance with frameworks including PCI DSS, GDPR, HIPAA, SWIFT and India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act. ARCON is particularly established in banking and financial services, government and critical infrastructure.