Page 165 - Cyber Defense eMagazine September 2025

In fact, modern platforms can secure privileged access in a way that’s:

• Proxyless – doesn’t require routing all of the network traffic through a gateway or rewriting apps.
• Credential-free – avoids injecting or exposing privileged credentials.
• Inline & real-time – dynamically responds to access attempts with adaptive policy decisions.

This architectural shift allows organizations to apply Zero Trust principles to privileged access—
validating every request continuously, applying least privilege policies, and responding to anomalies
instantly.

And it aligns with how security teams want to work: reducing the attack surface, minimizing user
disruption, and simplifying operations.

Will Vaults Disappear?

Vaults will remain part of the privileged access landscape for the foreseeable future. Some systems will
continue to require passwords. Some compliance requirements will mandate secure storage of
credentials. And in certain break-glass or legacy scenarios, having a vault as a fallback mechanism still
makes sense.

But vaults will no longer be the primary way organizations secure privileged access. Instead, the center
of gravity will shift to real-time, identity-aware controls—a model that doesn’t rely on handing users
credentials, and doesn’t require those credentials to exist in the first place.

We’re already seeing this transition unfold. Modern identity security platforms are being used to enforce
granular access controls for privileged sessions across cloud and on-prem environments. These
controls—based on who the user is, what resource they’re accessing, and under what context—are more
precise, more scalable, and more secure than vault-based approaches.

And importantly, they’re faster to deploy and easier to manage, because they don’t require users to
change how they log in or IT teams to redesign their environments.

Looking Ahead

The future of privileged access is vault-free. Vaults served a critical function in an earlier era. But as
identity becomes the new perimeter, and access becomes the control point, it’s time to move on.
Security leaders who want to reduce risk, accelerate zero trust adoption, and simplify their operational
burden should begin by asking: Do I need to protect this password, or can I eliminate it altogether?

By shifting the focus from accounts to access, we can finally secure identities in a way that’s invisible to
users, resistant to breaches, and built for the dynamic environments of today—and tomorrow.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – September 2025 Edition 165
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