Privileged Access Management Best Practices for IT Teams

Short answer: Privileged access management best practices come down to six controls: inventory every privileged account, give admins separate accounts, require MFA on all admin access, vault and rotate shared credentials, grant elevated rights just in time instead of permanently, and log and review every privileged session. Keep two tested break-glass accounts outside the normal controls so a lockout never becomes an outage.

Who this guide is for

This guide is for an IT admin, security engineer or IT manager who owns admin access and needs a defensible set of rules. It fits a 200-person company where five people share a domain admin password, a mid-size organization preparing for a SOC 2 or cyber-insurance questionnaire, and a team that already bought a PAM tool and wants policies to enforce in it.

Privileged access management (PAM) is a category of security software and practice that vaults, brokers, time-limits and records administrator access to servers, cloud consoles, databases and network devices. The practices below apply whether you enforce them with a commercial PAM product, native cloud tools or both. For the vendors in the category, see the privileged access management software hub.

PAM best practices at a glance

The table maps each practice to the standard an auditor is likely to cite and to a check you can run yourself. Control wording comes from NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 and CIS Controls v8.1, via the CSF Tools reference (accessed September 22, 2026).

Start with an inventory of privileged accounts

An inventory of privileged accounts is the first PAM best practice because every other control depends on it. List human admin accounts, built-in accounts (domain admin, root, Global Administrator), local administrator accounts on endpoints and servers, service accounts, API keys and cloud roles with write access to identity or billing.

NIST SP 800-53 AC-6(5) says to restrict privileged accounts to organization-defined personnel or roles, which is only provable with a list. Give each entry an owner, a purpose and a last-used date. Accounts with no owner get disabled after a notice period, not deleted, so you can roll back if a forgotten dependency breaks.

Admin tip: Service and machine accounts are usually the largest and least-owned part of the list. Record which system uses each one before you rotate its password, or the rotation will break that system.

Give every admin a separate, dedicated account

Separate admin accounts mean each administrator has one account for email, browsing and documents and a different account for privileged work. CIS Controls v8.1 Safeguard 5.4 states it directly: restrict administrator privileges to dedicated administrator accounts, and conduct general computing activities such as internet browsing, email and productivity suite use from the user's primary, non-privileged account.

NIST SP 800-53 AC-6(2) says the same thing for nonsecurity functions. In practice this means admin accounts get no mailbox and no license for productivity apps. Microsoft goes further and recommends that privileged sessions start from a trusted, "clean" device such as a privileged access workstation, because an admin account used on a compromised laptop is still compromised (Microsoft privileged access strategy, accessed September 22, 2026).

Require MFA on every administrative sign-in

MFA for administrative access is a baseline requirement, not an advanced one. CIS Controls v8.1 Safeguard 6.5 requires MFA for all administrative access accounts, where supported, on all enterprise assets, whether managed on-site or through a third-party provider, and places it in Implementation Group 1.

"Where supported" is the gap to close. Cloud consoles and identity providers support MFA easily; SSH to Linux servers, network device consoles and legacy apps often do not. Those systems are where a PAM broker earns its place: the admin authenticates to the broker with MFA, and the broker injects the target credential so the admin never sees it.

Watch out: Microsoft's emergency access guidance recommends using a different authentication method for break-glass accounts than for daily admin accounts, for example a FIDO2 key if admins normally use an authenticator app, so one method failing does not lock out everyone (Microsoft Entra emergency access guidance, accessed September 22, 2026).

Vault shared credentials and rotate them automatically

Vaulting means storing privileged credentials in an access-controlled, audited store, checking them out for a task and rotating them afterward. It replaces the spreadsheet, the shared password manager folder and the password everyone knows. Rotation after checkout means a password copied during one task is useless the next day.

Start with the most common lateral movement path: identical local administrator passwords across endpoints. Microsoft's Windows LAPS rotates each device's local administrator password and backs it up to Microsoft Entra ID or Active Directory, and Microsoft lists protection against pass-the-hash and lateral-traversal attacks as a benefit (Windows LAPS overview, updated September 16, 2026). Windows LAPS is available at no cost; backup to Entra ID needs Microsoft Entra ID Free or higher.

Admin tip: The legacy Microsoft LAPS product is deprecated on Windows 11 23H2 and later, and its emulation mode stores passwords in clear text in Active Directory, so treat emulation as a temporary migration step (Windows LAPS overview).

Replace standing admin rights with just-in-time access

Just-in-time (JIT) access gives a user temporary privileges for a task, which expire automatically, instead of permanent membership in an admin role. Microsoft's PIM documentation describes JIT as a model where access is granted only when needed, which prevents unauthorized users from using the permissions after they expire (Microsoft Entra PIM overview, accessed September 22, 2026).

A good JIT setup has five settings, all of which Microsoft Entra Privileged Identity Management documents:

1. Eligible, not active, assignments for everyone except break-glass accounts.
2. A maximum activation duration set by administrators.
3. MFA on activation for every role.
4. A written justification for each activation.
5. Approval for the highest-impact roles, with named approvers.

Using PIM requires Microsoft Entra ID P2 or Microsoft Entra ID Governance licenses for every eligible user, approver and reviewer (Microsoft Entra ID Governance licensing fundamentals, accessed September 22, 2026). Commercial PAM products extend the same model to servers, databases and non-Microsoft clouds.

Broker and record privileged sessions

Session control means privileged connections to servers, databases and network devices go through a broker that authenticates the admin, injects the credential and records the session. NIST SP 800-53 AC-6(9) requires that the execution of privileged functions be logged; a session recording is the most complete form of that log.

Prioritize recording where the blast radius is largest: domain controllers, hypervisors, backup systems, identity providers and production databases. Send session metadata and alerts to your SIEM, and set a retention period that matches your incident response and compliance needs. Microsoft frames the goal as limiting privileged actions to a few authorized pathways and closely monitoring those pathways (Microsoft privileged access strategy).

Keep two break-glass accounts and test them

Break-glass accounts, which Microsoft calls emergency access accounts, are admin accounts reserved for when normal admin sign-in fails: a federation outage, an MFA outage, or a JIT setup where no approver is available. Microsoft's guidance for Entra ID lists these settings (Microsoft Entra emergency access guidance, updated June 4, 2026):

• At least two accounts, cloud-only on the .onmicrosoft.com domain, not federated or synced from on-premises.
• Phishing-resistant sign-in (FIDO2 passkey or certificate-based authentication) that differs from daily admin methods.
• Excluded from Conditional Access policies that block or restrict sign-in, through a dedicated security group.
• Permanent active Global Administrator assignment in PIM, not eligible.
• Alerts on every sign-in, with a post-use review of what the account did.
• Validation at least every 90 days, and after staff changes.

Keep on-premises and cloud emergency access separate, with no dependency of one on the other.

Bring service and machine accounts under the same rules

Service accounts, API keys and workload identities often hold more privilege than any human and are rarely reviewed. Microsoft's strategy lists service account passwords and other secrets as lateral traversal risks to mitigate (Microsoft privileged access strategy). Apply the inventory, least privilege and rotation practices to them, and prefer managed identities or short-lived tokens over static passwords where the platform supports them.

Policy essentials you can copy

Adapt these sections into your access control policy. Each maps to a standard cited above.

1. Scope. This policy covers every account with administrative rights on enterprise assets, cloud tenants, network devices and applications, including service accounts and API keys.
2. Account separation. Administrators use a dedicated privileged account for administrative work only. Privileged accounts have no email and are not used for browsing or productivity apps.
3. Authentication. All administrative access requires MFA. Where a system cannot enforce MFA, access goes through an approved broker that does.
4. Standing access. Privileged roles are assigned as eligible and activated just in time with justification. Permanent assignment requires a documented exception.
5. Credentials. Shared and local administrator credentials are stored in an approved vault and rotated automatically.
6. Monitoring. Privileged sessions to critical systems are brokered and recorded. Privileged activity is logged and retained per the logging standard.
7. Emergency access. The organization maintains at least two emergency access accounts, alerts on every use, and tests them at least every 90 days.
8. Review. Owners review privileged role membership on a fixed schedule and remove access that is no longer needed.

Rollout plan

Roll out in phases so each one produces evidence before the next begins. No durations are given because they depend on estate size.

Enforcement and monitoring

Enforcement works when violations are visible. Alert on sign-ins by break-glass accounts, JIT activations outside business hours, new members added to admin groups, and admin sign-ins without MFA. Report monthly on the count of standing admin assignments and on accounts without owners; both numbers should fall over time. Microsoft measures success partly by cutting the time to remediate incidents that involve privileged access (Microsoft privileged access strategy).

Common exceptions and how to handle them

• Legacy systems without MFA: place them behind a broker that enforces MFA, and record the exception with an owner and review date.
• Vendor and contractor access: give time-bound, brokered access per engagement, never a shared standing account.
• Automation that needs permanent rights: use a dedicated service identity with the narrowest role, not a human admin account.
• On-call engineers: pre-approve eligibility for the on-call rotation so activation needs MFA and justification but not a human approver at 3 a.m.

Mistakes to avoid

• Treating a PAM product as the whole answer. Microsoft states that implementing a PIM/PAM solution alone is not sufficient and that the device, identity system and intermediaries must be protected too (Microsoft privileged access strategy).
• Putting break-glass accounts behind the same controls they bypass. A Conditional Access policy that requires MFA or a compliant device can make an emergency account unusable during the emergency (Microsoft Entra emergency access guidance).
• Making every role need approval with no active approver. Microsoft documents a lockout when all Global Administrator and Privileged Role Administrator assignments are eligible and no approvers remain.
• Rotating service account passwords before mapping dependencies. The rotation breaks whatever used the old password.
• Staying on legacy LAPS emulation. It keeps passwords in clear text in Active Directory (Windows LAPS overview).

Bottom line

If you do nothing else this quarter, split admin accounts from daily accounts, enforce MFA on every admin sign-in, deploy Windows LAPS and create two tested break-glass accounts; all four are documented and cost little. Buy a PAM product when you need brokered, recorded sessions and rotation across servers, databases and network devices. To compare products against your requirements, start with the PAM software hub or build a scored list in the shortlist builder.