Page 164 - Cyber Defense eMagazine September 2025

4. It creates a false sense of security. Security teams often assume that rotating credentials and
limiting access to the vault is enough. But if the password is still being handed to the user—even
for a short time—it can still be exfiltrated or abused. The security controls (like MFA, session
recording, or approval workflows) are tied to the vault, not to the privileged access itself. Once
the login is done, there is no additional enforcement point to apply security controls.

Vault-centric PAM worked well in the era of static infrastructure and long-lived accounts. But today’s IT
environments are dynamic, distributed, and identity-driven. Simply protecting credentials in a vault is no
longer enough.

From privileged account management to privileged access security

The real opportunity—and what defines the vault-free future—is to shift from managing privileged
accounts to securing privileged access.

In this model, organizations no longer rely on permanent accounts with vaulted passwords. Instead,
privileges are granted dynamically, just-in-time, and removed as soon as they’re no longer needed.
Access is brokered and monitored in real time based on user identity, context (device, location, time),
and policy.

This eliminates many of the risks associated with vault-based PAM:

• There is no standing credential to steal or reuse.
• The change to user behavior is minimal - no login disruption, and no password checkout process.
• All access is tightly monitored and tied to a verified identity.
• Even if the attacker gains hold of the password, the access is still secured and the attack can be
stopped there.
This model also extends seamlessly to non-human identities (NHIs)—like service accounts, scripts, AI
agents and automation tools—which now make up the majority of privileged access in most
organizations. Rather than managing thousands of long-lived credentials for these entities, organizations
can enforce policies that allow specific systems to initiate privileged access under strict controls, without
static secrets. As NHIs become more manageable through identity providers, cloud-native tools, and
runtime enforcement, the vault-free approach becomes both more feasible and more secure.

Identity-Centric Access: A More Secure Approach

This shift toward privileged access security is made possible by technological advances in identity
security. Organizations can now apply strong security controls at the identity layer—enforcing MFA, risk-
based policies, session monitoring, and just-in-time elevation—without injecting credentials or
modifying infrastructure.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – September 2025 Edition 164
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