Rise of the privileged access guardian: An admin’s origin story

Alex was the kind of IT administrator who kept everything humming smoothly behind the scenes at QuantumAxis Corp. Servers, user accounts, random requests at 4:55 PM on Fridays—he put out the fires and stayed out of the drama. So, when the CISO asked for a “quick chat,” he braced himself.

“Alex,” she said, with zero preamble, “we’ve had too many close calls lately. Phishing attempts, questionable activity on an old admin account and one very persistent attacker trying to brute-force their way into a privileged user profile.” She paused. “We have to rethink how we’re managing privileged access. And you’re the man to do it.”

Alex nearly choked on his last sip of lukewarm coffee. Privileged accounts meant root access, domain controllers, internal finance systems—the keys to the kingdom. This wasn’t the kind of project you took lightly. But this wasn’t Alex’s first rabbit hole.

“I’ll get started,” he said. He knew that there wouldn’t be any parades or pageantry for saving this kingdom. Maybe some pizza. Just another day in the life of a [cue theme music] Guardian of Privileged Access.

The problem: Chaos among privileged accounts

Alex spun on his swivel chair, donned his noise-canceling headphones and dove into his analysis.

It wasn’t a pretty picture.

• On one side, privileged accounts (shared or personal) enabled the administration of long-lived systems, such as data centers, operational technological environments and lift-and-shift infrastructure. This includes local admin accounts built into every endpoint and server in an organization.
• On the other hand, the company’s fast-growing cloud infrastructure with overprivileged roles enables administration of elastic cloud workloads, such as virtual machines (VMs), databases and configuration of cloud provider services such as networking, storage, Big Data and AI/ML services.

He needed a dual-pronged approach: one that could secure standing access—credentials and passwords for privileged accounts that exist across his on-premises and multi-cloud environments—and the other to provision access to dynamic workloads and services on a just-in-time (JIT) basis. In other words, he needed to embrace zero standing privileges (ZSP) without triggering total architectural meltdown.

But where do you find tools that can do both, without involving three new vendors, two failed pilots, and a 200-slide deck?

Enter the CyberArk suite

After weeks of research (read: technical whitepapers, forum threads and a few regretful webinars), Alex stumbled upon CyberArk, a name whispered in IT security circles as the gold standard for privileged access management. He discovered that CyberArk offered many services—and two stood out as powerful mechanisms, tailor-made for his needs:

1. Secure standing access and access using vaulted credentials: A centralized repository designed to secure, store and rotate privileged credentials. It could protect long-term accounts while providing monitoring and compliance.
2. Enable zero standing privileges (ZSP): A modern approach to access management, where credentials are issued just-in-time (JIT) and removed after use, eliminating the risks associated with always-on privileged access.

This was a rare thing in IT: a solution that didn’t just check the boxes but actually made sense. Could this bring order to the privileged access chaos at QuantumAxis? Could this be…the perfect solution?

Alex began implementing the CyberArk recommendations—cautiously. After all, he’d been burned before.

CyberArk recommendations

With the CyberArk suite of tools in hand, Alex began outlining his plan to address the most pressing issues. As he scrolled through a very long list of privileged accounts (and a few that shouldn’t still exist), he started breaking things down by scenario.

Here’s what stood out:

a. Active Directory domain admins

An Active Directory Domain Admin account is a highly privileged account that is a member of the Domain Admins group. They have elevated privileges across the complete domain and can manage the entire domain infrastructure.

The CyberArk advice is clear: Always secure domain admin accounts in the vault and access them using vaulted credentials.

For Example:

• For personal privilege accounts like “jack_adm” or shared/functional accounts like “domadmins,” the recommendation is to store the credentials in vault and access using vaulted credentials.
• If a workforce user like jack.ryan@acme.com is expected to have domain admin access, the recommendation is to grant such access using personal privilege accounts like “jack_adm” or shared/functional accounts like “domadmins” and ensure the credentials for these personal or shared accounts are stored in a vault and accessed using vaulted credentials.

b. Windows/*NIX server domain-joined admins

A domain-joined account is a regular user account that exists in the Active Directory (AD) domain. It authenticates users who need to log into domain-joined computers or access domain resources. This type of account can be for regular users, administrative staff, or any employee who needs access to the domain’s services.

The account that accesses the domain-joined servers should always be a workforce user. So, CyberArk recommends always migrating access to ZSP.

For Example:

• For a workforce user like ryan@acme.com, the recommendation is to migrate the access to ZSP.
• For personal privilege accounts like “jack_adm” or shared accounts like “serveradmins,” the recommendation is as follows, in this order:
  • Revoke the access that exists for personal or shared/functional privilege accounts and associate access to corresponding workforce user(s) like ryan@acme.com and migrate the access to ZSP.
  • But, if you can’t follow the above recommendation, you can go with storing the credentials of the personal or shared/functional privileged accounts in vault and then do Just-In-Time (JIT) elevation using stored credentials.

c. Windows/*NIX server local admins

A Server Local Admin account is an administrative account that exists on a server system. It provides full administrative control over the local server and is primarily used for managing the server’s configuration, services and resources.

The CyberArk recommendation is to vault built-in permanent local accounts like “SID-500” on Windows or “root” on *NIX systems, establish strong credential rotation policies, and remove personal local admin accounts and replace them with ZSP access tied to federated identities.

d. Windows/Mac workstation local admins

A Workstation Local Admin account is an administrative account on a desktop or laptop (workstation). It provides full control over the local computer and is typically used to manage system settings, install software and configure devices on a personal or business workstation.

The CyberArk recommendation is straightforward for both built-in accounts and shared/functional accounts: protect the standing access using vault and access using vaulted credentials. For personal privilege accounts, ensure they are removed and access is granted through the workforce user.

Additionally, workforce users should not have persistent local administrative rights; instead, they should receive just-in-time (JIT) elevation only when necessary. CyberArk Endpoint Privilege Manager (EPM) streamlines this process, enabling organizations to enforce least-privilege access through centralized configuration, reducing risk while maintaining operational efficiency.

For example:

• For built-in default accounts like “administrators” with “SID-500” in Windows workstations or “root” with UID0, the recommendation is to protect their standing access in the vault and access using vaulted credentials.
• For shared/functional privilege accounts like “serveradmins,” the recommendation is to protect their standing access in the vault and access using vaulted credentials.
• For personal accounts, like “jack_adm,” the recommendation is NOT to create them on the workstation, remove them and ensure the access is allowed only through the workforce user like ryan@acme.com and allowed access through JIT elevation when necessary and make sure the workstation is connected to the domain.

e. Cloud environment access

Alex’s biggest headache—managing privileged access across AWS, Azure and GCP—felt much more manageable with the CyberArk guidance.

The recommendation is to vault the standing access like AWS root accounts while migrating the access to federated users to cloud services and workloads to ZSP.

For example:

• For the workforce user ryan@acme.com, who currently has standing access to AWS services like EC2, RDS, and others through the Administrator role, the recommendation is to migrate this access to a ZSP model. This can be done by creating a just-in-time access policy using CyberArk Secure Cloud Access (SCA).
• For workforce user jack.ryan@acme.com that requires access to a virtual machine hosted in the cloud, migrate the access to ZSP by creating recurring policies in CyberArk SIA (Secure Infrastructure Access).

f. Database admins

A database admin account is an administrative account on a database environment like Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, DB2, Informix, Postgres, SAP HANA, etc. Database admins have the capacity to access and modify any aspect of the specific database instances under their control. They are primarily used for administrative purposes and are considered risky due to their elevated privileges.

The CyberArk recommendation is to vault built-in permanent Database admin accounts and use ZSP access for workforce identities having Database admin privileges.

For example:

• For built-in database admins like admin, sa, SYS, SYSTEM, DBA, root, Informix, or postgres, the recommendation is to secure the standing access by storing credentials in a vault and access using vaulted credentials.
• For workforce user jack.ryan@acme.com that requires database admin access, migrate the access to ZSP by creating recurring policies in CyberArk SIA (Secure Infrastructure Access).

The lesson: Guardians of privileged access

A few nights later, long after the last Slack message had gone quiet and the dashboards stopped blinking red, Alex sat staring at his screen. No fires. No frantic pings. No “just one more thing” tickets. And that’s when it hit him—this time, the solution had actually worked.

The CyberArk dual mechanisms—securing standing access with vaulted credentials and enabling ZSP—had done more than tick a compliance box. They’d brought real, structural change. Session recording added an extra layer of visibility, letting Alex audit privileged user operations without chasing people down or guessing who touched what.

By removing always-on access and switching to just-in-time provisioning, he’d done what many thought impossible: tightened security without slowing everything to a crawl. QuantumAxis was safer, leaner and for once, slightly less chaotic.

Epilogue

Alex got another invite to Emily’s office. No subject line. Just “swing by when you have a sec.” He found her leaning back in her chair, arms crossed.

“I’m not saying you saved the company,” she said, “But this rollout is clean. Controlled. We’ve got security and usability on speaking terms. This might actually be sustainable. If you had worn a cape while doing it, I wouldn’t have questioned it.”

“Not really a cape guy,” he said.

“Unsung, but not unnoticed.” She slid a small, slightly greasy box across the desk. “Leftover pizza. Security team insists it’s tradition.”

He accepted it like a medal of honor. “As long as it’s not pineapple.”

Anil Kumar is a staff product manager at CyberArk.