Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

PAM solutions in 2026 must cover non-human identities, enforce zero standing privilege, and deploy in days rather than quarters. Legacy vault-centric tools leave standing accounts in place between rotations, giving attackers persistent targets across service accounts and machine workloads. Evaluating modern PAM requires testing JIT access depth, AD/Entra ID integration, and real-world deployment timelines against your hybrid environment.

Microsoft Entra ID controls identity across Microsoft 365, Azure, and SaaS, making it a primary target for credential theft, OAuth abuse, and session hijacking. Defenders need phishing-resistant MFA, hardened PIM, tuned Conditional Access, and SIEM-integrated identity signals. Native tools do not cover on-prem AD threats, long-term retention, or cross-platform correlation, so hybrid organizations need complementary tooling.

Non-human identities are the fastest-growing and least-governed identity population in most environments. Service accounts, API keys, and AI agents run without MFA, without owners, and without expiration. Traditional identity and access management (IAM) wasn't built to manage them. Without governance for discovery, ownership, and lifecycle management, stale machine credentials become attacker footholds that persist for months.

Netwrix DSPM enhances Microsoft 365 security with unified data discovery, context-aware risk prioritization, automated remediation, and continuous compliance monitoring. While M365 provides foundational security through Purview and Entra ID, it lacks visibility into shadow data and automated risk response. Netwrix closes these gaps, helping organizations discover sensitive data, enforce least privilege, and respond faster to threats.

Access control defines who can access data and systems across an IT environment and under what conditions. Common models include DAC, MAC, RBAC, and ABAC, each supporting different governance and risk requirements. Strong access control depends on MFA, least-privilege enforcement, continuous audits, and clear visibility into sensitive data.

Remote work security depends on protecting identities, devices, and data across distributed environments. Organizations must secure home networks, encrypt endpoints, enforce strong authentication, and reduce credential risk. Applying Zero Trust principles, limiting standing privileges, monitoring endpoint activity, and maintaining visibility into access and data movement helps reduce attack surface, contain threats faster, and support compliance in remote and hybrid work models.

What data are your employees feeding into unapproved AI tools? If you can't answer that question, then you might have shadow AI security risks that you don't know about. The Netwrix Cybersecurity Trends Report 2025 found that 37% of organizations have already had to adjust their security strategies due to AI-driven threats, while 30% haven't started AI implementation at all. That gap between how fast AI threats are evolving and how slowly organizations are responding is where shadow AI thrives.

Teams sprawl is one of the most overlooked security risks in Microsoft 365 environments. When all your employees can create teams on demand, without approval, naming conventions, or expiration policies, the result is hundreds of ungoverned workspaces with no clear ownership, inconsistent naming, and scattered data. That governance gap creates measurable risk.

Netwrix found that SafeNet Agent for Windows Logon versions 4.0.0–4.1.2 create an insecure AD CS certificate template by default, enabling an ESC1 path that allows any authenticated user to escalate to Domain Admin. Thales fixed the issue in version 4.1.3 by restricting certificate enrollment to the NDES service account.

If you haven’t heard yet, Netwrix recently formed a dedicated in-house Security Research team on July 15, 2025. The team focuses on producing research across areas like identity, data security, AI, and cloud, while also translating publicly available research into practical improvements across our product portfolio so customers can benefit from it.