Privileged access management (PAM) was once thought of in simple terms: secure the credentials of a handful of administrators managing on-premises systems. Vault the passwords, rotate them regularly, and record every privileged session
It worked for a world with clear boundaries and predictable users. That world is now a museum piece.
But here’s the shift: It’s not that PAM has changed. The very definition of privilege has evolved. What was once a set of credentials to protect has become a dynamic web of entitlements, identities, and automated actions that span every layer of modern IT.
We used to secure privileges by locking them away. Now, privilege is everywhere and constantly changing form. Every developer, workload, and AI agent holds a piece of the infrastructure’s power. The number of environments has exploded to include multi-cloud platforms, Kubernetes clusters, CI/CD pipelines, and countless SaaS applications. Each creates a new privilege relationship, and these identities and systems represent a potential point of compromise.
When identity is the last real perimeter, privilege becomes the control plane that defines your true risk surface in this world of exponential complexity.
The identity security shift
Yesterday’s tools can no longer protect today’s environments. The new frontier requires a shift, not only in technology, but in thinking about the problem and rebuilding our approach to identity security.
When I talk to customers building with AI, I see a pattern where every innovation introduces new privilege paths we never designed for:
- Human identities: Developers, admins, platform engineers, and even business users need short-term, project-specific elevated access.
- Machine identities: Applications, workloads, and pipelines continuously request secrets, tokens, and credentials, which often carry high levels of privilege.
- AI: LLM-powered assistants now issue commands, generate code, and access data autonomously.
Managing this diverse cast of identities with an outdated identity security model is like trying to run a modern airport with 1950s-era air traffic control. Speed is the new competitive edge, but speed without precision creates risk.
Your last line of defense, privileged access, is under siege
Privilege is both the weapon and the defense. The same power that enables innovation can also destroy it if uncontrolled. Attackers no longer “break in”; they log in. And they only need to be successful once, while defenders must continuously manage the dynamic state of privilege.
Credentials, compromised identities, and malicious access continue to be the most common causes of breaches. Every standing entitlement increases the blast radius of a single compromised account.
At the same time, speed and automation drive modern operations. Developers can’t wait days for access approvals. Engineers find shortcuts. Secrets are copied into scripts. Access friction breeds security shortcuts. Roles remain over-provisioned. Convenience chips away at control. Lack of control chips away at cybersecurity risk.
Why standing privileges must go
The principle of least privilege (PoLP) has always been sound advice. It promotes risk reduction by designing systems that assume nothing is permanent: not users, workloads, or trust. But in practice, it often meant an identity still had persistent, or “standing,” entitlements. Even if those privileges were rarely used, they were always on, waiting to be exploited. In a dynamic world, this model is a liability.
Zero standing privileges (ZSP) isn’t just a control. It’s a commitment to precision: every action, authorized in real time.
ZSP begins with a simple, yet powerful premise: no identity, human, machine, or AI, has permissions by default. When access is needed, it’s granted dynamically for the specific task at hand using passwordless authentication to keep user credentials safe, then revoked the moment the task is complete.
This ZSP approach works in conjunction with just-in-time (JIT) access, which delivers necessary permissions on demand. Together, these methods provide a foundation for modern identity security:
- ZSP: Eliminates dormant entitlements that could be exploited.
- JIT access: Grants privileges only when and for as long as needed.
- Passwordless methods: Reduce credentials risk through technologies like passkeys, QR codes, or biometrics.
If an identity with standing entitlements is compromised, an attacker doesn’t need to wait for a JIT request to exploit those permissions. By combining ZSP and JIT with passwordless authentication, you eliminate that underlying risk. This radical paradigm shift isn’t optional. It’s foundational for the next era of identity security.
AI, automation, and the new privileged frontier
The rise of autonomous systems, agents, and APIs is creating a new privileged frontier that demands an entirely different approach to control and trust.
Today’s AI pipelines carry invisible privileges that most security teams haven’t accounted for: unrestricted data access, automated model updates, and execution environments that cross cloud boundaries. These aren’t just new attack surfaces; they’re fundamentally different types of privilege that traditional access controls weren’t built to govern.
The future won’t separate privilege management from AI governance. Instead, the two will merge. AI-driven systems will both consume and govern privilege dynamically, making real-time trust decisions based on context, behavior, and risk.
The question isn’t whether AI will reshape how we think about privileged access; it’s whether we’ll adapt our security models fast enough to meet the challenge.
Unification of control: one platform of trust
The explosion of privileged access isn’t just a human problem. When machines start making access decisions, who’s really in control?
Security has become a collection of silos, each protecting its own island. The future demands convergence. The control plane must unify to secure every identity and every target, from on-prem servers to SaaS admin consoles.
This transition isn’t about ripping and replacing what you have. The foundational PAM controls that protect your critical on-premises systems, including vaulting, password rotation, and session monitoring, are still essential. A unified platform enables you to run these proven methods alongside modern ZSP and JIT models for cloud and AI workloads.
This unified approach gives organizations flexibility to:
- Protect legacy systems with trusted vaulting and session management.
- Secure cloud-native projects with ephemeral, dynamic access.
- Deliver one consistent experience for your IT admins, developers, and platform engineers.
With two decades of experience in the industry, our commitment is to deliver operational simplicity. While teams use their preferred tools and workflows, security policies are enforced seamlessly in the background. True innovation lies in security that accelerates progress rather than slowing it down, all without compromising security.
Securing the future of privilege for the future of identity
Privilege is no longer a problem to solve; it’s the foundation to build on. It’s no longer a feature of a few accounts, but a condition of access for every identity interacting with your infrastructure. Continuing to manage it with tools built for a static world isn’t just inefficient; it’s dangerous.
Throughout my career, I’ve watched privilege transform from static credentials locked in vaults to the connective tissue for every system we build. The next evolution won’t just be a technical challenge; it’s a fundamental question about how we architect trust itself.
Thinking bigger about privileged access means seeing it for what it truly is: the central control plane for your entire organization. It requires a platform that honors the trusted foundations of PAM while embracing the dynamic, ephemeral nature of modern IT.
It’s about securing every identity, human and machine, with intelligent controls that enable speed, not friction.
The future of privilege isn’t about control for control’s sake. It’s about enabling innovation without fear. That’s the world we’re building. It isn’t a distant concept; it’s the next evolution of identity security, and it’s happening now.
One platform. Every identity and infrastructure. Secured.
Gil Rapaport is CyberArk’s Chief Solutions Officer.
