For years, Privileged Access Management (PAM) has focused on vaulting passwords, rotating secrets, and enforcing least privilege. But in environments moving toward Zero Trust, one challenge remains stubbornly unchanged: standing privilege.

The idea that an administrator, or even worse, a machine identity, should hold permanent, high-level access is fundamentally incompatible with how modern security works. A single compromised credential with always-on privilege is enough to give an attacker unlimited time for lateral movement, privilege escalation, and stealthy persistence.

That’s why Just-in-Time (JIT) Access is no longer merely a feature. It is becoming a baseline requirement for Zero Trust.

The Problem: Standing Privilege Cannot Coexist with Zero Trust

Zero Trust operates on a simple principle: never trust, always verify.
Standing privilege violates this by granting implicit, perpetual trust to accounts that rarely need it. And the consequences are predictable:

• A Permanently Expanded Attack Surface

If an admin account holds Domain Admin rights 24/7, that privilege is available to an attacker 24/7. One phishing email or a single endpoint compromise can lead to a full domain compromise.

• Privilege Creep Becomes Security Debt

Admins accumulate rights with every project, emergency hotfix, or troubleshooting session. Months later, those privileges remain forgotten, unaudited, and vulnerable.

• Weak Forensics and Murky Audit Trails

When a breach occurs, investigators struggle to determine whether a privileged action was legitimate or malicious. Standing access blurs the audit trail and complicates root-cause analysis. Standing privilege is not just a compliance gap; it is an architectural flaw.
And modern Zero Trust environments cannot afford it.

The Solution: The JIT Access Lifecycle

JIT access eliminates standing privilege by ensuring that no user or machine identity retains permanent admin rights.
Instead, privileges are granted only when requested, verified, approved, and time-bound. Modern platforms such as CyberArk Secure Infrastructure Access (SIA) operationalize this model at scale.

The lifecycle unfolds across four stages:

1. Request

The user authenticates through their enterprise identity provider (Okta, Entra ID, etc.) and submits a request that includes:

• The target resource (e.g., a Linux server, Kubernetes namespace, cloud IAM role).
• The privilege level required.
• Justification.
• Requested duration.

There are no standing admin accounts. The request itself triggers the need for privilege.

2. Verify and Authorize (Zero Trust Checkpoint)

This is the most important step, and the heart of Zero Trust. The system performs adaptive checks:

• Identity verification with MFA.
• Group membership and role validation.
• Device health and network posture.
• Second approval for sensitive actions.
• Conditional access rules based on risk.

No request is granted simply because someone is an admin. Every request must prove that it should be permitted.

3. Provision

If approved, the PAM system dynamically provisions temporary privileged access:

• Creating a time-bound local user.
• Issuing a short-lived SSH certificate or cloud IAM token.
• Temporarily placing the user in a privileged group.
• Generating ephemeral credentials that expire automatically.

The user gets the exact level of privilege needed.

4. Deprovision

When the approved duration expires (30, 60, or 90 minutes), access is revoked instantly. The user reverts to their baseline identity. No tickets, no manual removal, no forgotten privileges.

Why JIT Access Changes the Security Equation

JIT access does more than remove standing privilege; it reshapes operational security.

• Reduced Attack Surface

No standing admin rights means attackers have nothing to steal or exploit in the long term.

• Improved Operational Hygiene

No more privilege creep, overprovisioned accounts, or dormant admin roles.

• Cleaner Forensics and Auditing

Each privileged action has a timestamp, justification, approval chain, and session log.
Every privileged event is explainable.

• Better Alignment with Zero Trust Architecture

JIT becomes the enforcement layer that ensures verification happens every time privilege is granted.

Where JIT Access Is Headed

As enterprises move deeper into:

• Multi-cloud operations
• Containerized workloads
• Automated pipelines
• Ephemeral compute
• AI-driven identity and access workflows

JIT becomes the only model that scales securely. Standing privilege was designed for a world of static servers, static identities, and static trust. That world no longer exists.

In Conclusion

Just-in-Time access marks a shift in how privileged access is managed, moving from static trust to dynamic, contextual, Zero Trust enforcement. It closes one of the biggest gaps in modern security architecture: the existence of always-on privilege.

Enterprises that adopt JIT access don’t just strengthen security; they gain forensic clarity. They reduce operational overhead, and they finally align PAM with Zero Trust principles.

JIT isn’t an enhancement to PAM. It’s the future of PAM.