Privileged Identity Management (PIM): Implementation Guide
Standing privileged access — accounts with permanent administrative rights — is the most consistently exploited attack surface in enterprise environments. An attacker who compromises a Domain Admin account with standing privileges has unlimited time to operate. An attacker who compromises a just-in-time elevation request has a narrow window before the privilege expires. Privileged Identity Management (PIM) is the practice of eliminating always-on privileged access and replacing it with time-bounded, audited privilege granted on demand for specific tasks. This guide covers the implementation of PIM from initial privileged account discovery through mature zero-standing-privilege deployment.
The Standing Privilege Problem
Standing privileged access creates durable attack windows that threat actors exploit.
Always-on admin accounts
When a Domain Admin account has permanent Group membership, an attacker who steals that credential has Domain Admin access indefinitely — until the credential is discovered and rotated. In environments with poor detection, this can mean months of unrestricted access.
Service account sprawl
Service accounts for applications, scripts, and integrations accumulate over time. Many are granted broad privileges for convenience and never reviewed. Dormant service accounts with Domain Admin rights are a persistent attack surface that rarely appears in active monitoring.
Shared administrator accounts
Shared admin accounts (Administrator, root) with shared credentials cannot be attributed to a specific person — audit logs show the account, not the individual. This creates accountability gaps and prevents detection of insider misuse.
Lateral movement amplification
Environments where developers, IT admins, and helpdesk staff have Domain Admin on their regular accounts amplify lateral movement: any workstation compromise immediately yields Domain Admin credentials. PIM confines privilege to specific, monitored sessions.
PIM Core Capabilities
A complete PIM implementation delivers four core capabilities that together eliminate standing privilege.
Just-in-time (JIT) access
Privileged access is granted for a defined duration (typically 1-8 hours) upon request, with approval workflow for sensitive access. The privilege expires automatically at the end of the window. Accounts have no standing privilege between sessions — the window of exposure is bounded by the session duration rather than the credential lifetime.
Privileged session management
All privileged sessions are proxied through the PAM system, which records session activity (keystrokes, screen recording, commands executed). Session recordings are stored for audit and forensic investigation. The analyst never receives the actual credential — the PAM system injects it into the session automatically.
Credential vaulting
Privileged credentials (local administrator passwords, service account passwords, root credentials) are stored in an encrypted vault with access controlled by the PAM system. Credentials can be rotated automatically after each checkout (single-use passwords), eliminating the risk of credential reuse after a session ends.
Privileged access governance
Periodic access reviews certify that each privileged account still has a legitimate business need. Role-based access requests define what privilege can be requested by which roles. Workflow integration ensures that access requests are approved by appropriate managers and security personnel.
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Privileged Account Discovery: Finding What You Do Not Know
PIM programs consistently discover privileged accounts that no one knew existed. Discovery must precede governance.
Active Directory privileged group enumeration
Enumerate all members of Domain Admins, Enterprise Admins, Schema Admins, Backup Operators, Account Operators, Server Operators, and any nested groups that grant equivalent rights. Tools: BloodHound, PowerView, AD administrative tools. The result consistently surprises: service accounts, test accounts, and long-departed employee accounts with Domain Admin rights are common findings.
Local administrator discovery
Identify which accounts have local administrator rights on which systems. In environments without LAPS, local admin credentials are often shared and rarely rotated. Microsoft LAPS deployment combined with PIM for privileged access to local admin provides consistent coverage.
Cloud privileged role inventory
Enumerate all accounts with Owner, Contributor, Global Administrator, or equivalent roles in cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP). IAM Access Analyzer (AWS) and Entra ID access reviews identify privileged role assignments including service principals and managed identities.
Service account identification
Identify service accounts used for application-to-application authentication, scheduled tasks, and service execution. Map each service account to its owning application team, required permissions, and last password change date. Service accounts with Domain Admin rights that could operate with lower privilege are high-priority remediation targets.
PAM Tool Selection
Enterprise PAM platforms manage privileged credential vaulting, session management, and JIT access at scale. The market has three established leaders and several strong challengers.
CyberArk
The market leader with the broadest capability set: credential vaulting, session management, JIT access, threat analytics, and cloud entitlement management (Cloud Entitlements Manager). CyberArk is the most feature-complete platform and commands premium pricing. Best fit: large enterprises with complex mixed environments (on-premises, cloud, OT) requiring the full PAM capability set. Implementation complexity is high.
BeyondTrust
Strong in endpoint privilege management (removing local admin rights from workstations) alongside traditional PAM server capabilities. BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management (EPM) is the category leader for workstation privilege management — a capability CyberArk does not match at the endpoint tier. Best fit: organizations prioritizing workstation privilege reduction alongside server PAM.
Delinea (formerly Thycotic/Centrify)
Strong in usability and deployment speed relative to CyberArk. Secret Server (credential vaulting) and Privilege Manager (endpoint) are the core products. Good fit for mid-market enterprises that need PAM capability without CyberArk's implementation overhead.
Microsoft Entra PIM
Native JIT access for Entra ID and Azure roles — no additional tooling required for Microsoft cloud environments. Entra PIM provides time-bounded role activation, approval workflows, and access reviews for Entra roles (Global Administrator, Privileged Role Administrator, etc.) and Azure subscriptions. No credential vaulting or session recording; best suited as a component of a broader PAM strategy rather than a standalone solution.
HashiCorp Vault
Open source secrets management platform that can serve as the credential vaulting layer for custom PAM workflows. Vault's dynamic secrets capability (generating short-lived database credentials, AWS IAM keys, SSH certificates on demand) is uniquely powerful for eliminating standing cloud and database credentials. Requires engineering investment to operationalize; not a full PAM platform out of the box.
Implementation Sequence
PIM implementation follows a phased sequence that delivers value incrementally while managing the operational risk of removing standing access.
Phase 1 — Vault and rotate Tier 0 credentials
Import Tier 0 credentials (Domain Admin, local Administrator, root) into the PAM vault and rotate them. Ensure all access to these credentials goes through the PAM system. This eliminates the most critical standing credentials even before JIT workflows are configured.
Phase 2 — Session management for Tier 0 access
Configure PAM session proxying for all Tier 0 system access. Administrators no longer receive credentials directly — they connect through the PAM jump server. Session recording begins. This provides audit coverage and prevents credential extraction from session memory.
Phase 3 — JIT elevation for Tier 0
Remove permanent Domain Admin group membership from all administrative accounts. Replace with JIT elevation: administrators request Domain Admin access for specific tasks, receive time-bounded approval, and the account is automatically de-elevated when the session ends. This is the highest-impact PIM control.
Phase 4 — Extend to Tier 1 and cloud
Expand credential vaulting, session management, and JIT to Tier 1 servers and cloud privileged roles. This is the long-running phase — covering hundreds of servers and dozens of cloud roles takes time. Prioritize by criticality: production systems before development, internet-facing before internal.
Phase 5 — Service account remediation
Migrate service accounts to Managed Service Accounts (gMSA) where possible — these have automatically managed passwords not accessible to humans. For legacy service accounts, vault the credentials and implement regular automated rotation. Remove Domain Admin rights from service accounts that do not require them.
PIM Metrics and Governance
Measuring PIM program maturity requires tracking the reduction in standing privilege over time.
Privileged account count reduction
Track the number of accounts with standing privileged access over time. This should decrease as JIT workflows replace permanent group memberships. Target: zero standing Tier 0 memberships; minimal standing Tier 1 memberships.
Session recording coverage
Percentage of privileged sessions that are recorded. Target: 100% for Tier 0 systems; 80%+ for Tier 1. Gaps in coverage are forensic blind spots.
Credential rotation compliance
Percentage of vaulted credentials that were rotated on schedule. Stale credentials in the vault that have not been rotated since vaulting provide less protection than automatically rotated credentials.
Access review completion rate
Percentage of privileged access certifications completed within the review window. Incomplete reviews allow privilege accumulation to persist unchecked.
The bottom line
Privileged Identity Management is the most direct control against the credential abuse that drives the majority of enterprise breaches. The implementation sequence — vault and rotate first, then session management, then JIT elevation — delivers security value at each phase without waiting for full program maturity. The target state, zero standing privileges for all Tier 0 access, is achievable for most enterprises within 12-18 months of focused effort. Every day of standing Domain Admin access is a day of unnecessary risk.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between PAM and PIM?
PAM (Privileged Access Management) is the broader category covering all practices and tools for managing privileged accounts: credential vaulting, session recording, access governance, and just-in-time access. PIM (Privileged Identity Management) specifically refers to the governance of privileged identities — who has privileged access, to what, for how long, with what justification. In practice the terms are often used interchangeably. Microsoft uses PIM specifically for their Entra ID JIT role elevation product.
What is just-in-time (JIT) privileged access?
JIT access grants privilege for a defined time window (typically 1-8 hours) upon request, rather than providing permanent standing access. The administrator requests the specific privilege needed (Domain Admin, server local admin), provides a justification, receives approval from a manager or the PAM system based on policy, and the privilege is granted for the approved window then automatically revoked. This limits the window of exposure if credentials are compromised.
What is zero standing privileges (ZSP)?
Zero standing privileges is the target state where no privileged account maintains permanent access to sensitive systems. All privileged access is requested, approved, time-bounded, and audited through the PAM system. In practice, achieving ZSP for Tier 0 (Domain Controllers, core AD infrastructure) is the highest-priority target. Full ZSP across all tiers and all privileged accounts is an aspirational goal that requires sustained multi-year program execution.
How does PAM integrate with Active Directory tiering?
PAM and AD tiering are complementary controls. The tiering model defines which accounts are in which tier and prevents cross-tier logon. PAM controls how those accounts are managed: Tier 0 credentials are vaulted, session access is proxied and recorded, and JIT elevation is required to obtain Tier 0 access. Tier 0 PAM without tiering still allows credential theft from lower-tier systems; tiering without PAM still allows standing Tier 0 credentials. Together they provide the most complete privileged access control.
What happens to service accounts in a PIM program?
Service accounts require different treatment than human privileged accounts. The preferred approach is migration to Group Managed Service Accounts (gMSA) — Windows automatically manages gMSA passwords (240-character random strings rotated regularly) and the credentials are never exposed to administrators. For applications that cannot use gMSA, vault service account credentials in the PAM system with automated rotation. Remove any service account privilege that exceeds what the application actually requires — many service accounts were granted Domain Admin for convenience when read-only or application-specific permissions would suffice.
How long does PAM implementation take?
A realistic timeline for Phase 1-3 (vault Tier 0 credentials, add session management, implement JIT for Domain Admin): 3-6 months. Full PAM coverage across Tier 0 and Tier 1 on-premises plus cloud privileged roles: 12-24 months. Service account remediation is often the longest phase — identifying all service accounts, determining their owners, and migrating to gMSA is tedious operational work that rarely has a natural forcing function. Organizations that tackle service account remediation as a parallel workstream rather than a sequential phase complete the program faster.
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