PAM is Dead. Long Live CPAM.

Why legacy tools built for static data centers are failing fast in the cloud and how modern security teams are adapting.

The Cloud Didn’t Just Move the Data Center—It Broke the Rules

You didn’t just lift-and-shift. The cloud changed your architecture, your team velocity, and your entire identity model. But while infrastructure evolved, Privileged Access Management (PAM) tools stayed stuck in the past—built for servers that rarely moved, admins that rarely changed, and networks you could draw a perimeter around.

Today, infrastructure spins up and down by the hour. Identities are mostly non-human. And permissions? They’re spread across dozens of services, APIs, and platforms. So why are we still managing privilege like it’s 2013?

Let’s be blunt: traditional PAM is built for a world that no longer exists. It’s time for a smarter, cloud-native model—Cloud Privileged Access Management (CPAM).

Legacy PAM vs. Reality: A Side-by-Side Breakdown

This mismatch isn’t just annoying. It’s dangerous.

The Real-World Risk: Expanded Attack Surface

Standing privileges are a hacker’s favorite prize. Traditional PAM often grants broad, persistent permissions—especially for service accounts or admin roles. In the cloud, where a single IAM misstep can expose massive swaths of data, this is a liability most orgs can’t afford.

Add in the growth of non-human identities (NHIs)—scripts, CI/CD pipelines, APIs—and you’ve got a privileged access ecosystem that’s far bigger, faster, and more fragmented than ever before.

Legacy tools weren’t designed to see this. Let alone secure it.

What CPAM Does Differently (And Why It Works)

Cloud Privileged Access Management is a ground-up rethink, built for the realities of today’s distributed architectures:

• No more standing privilege. Access is provisioned Just-in-Time (JIT) and revoked automatically.
  
  
• Works across all your clouds. No more managing AWS IAM, Azure RBAC, and Google Cloud separately.
  
  
• Treats NHIs as first-class citizens. Machine identities are secured, rotated, and monitored like humans—often more tightly.
  
  
• API-native, automation-ready. CPAM integrates with your pipelines, CI/CD, ticketing, and more.
  
  

The IVI Advantage: Secure Privilege Meets Real-World Ops

At Intelligent Visibility, we don’t sell shelfware. We design and deliver CPAM as a co-managed service, embedded into your DevOps, compliance, and cloud strategy.

That means:

• Mapping access workflows to your actual users, not textbook diagrams
  
  
• Instrumenting privilege into your automation—not bolting it on afterward
  
  
• Connecting CPAM with your observability, SecOps, and identity layers
  
  

Bottom line? You get visibility, control, and measurable outcomes. Not just more alerts.

Next Up: Why “Zero Standing Privileges” Isn’t Optional Anymore

We’ll explore the next pillar of CPAM: Zero Standing Privileges—what it means, how it works, and how to make it real without slowing your team down.

→ Or jump ahead to our Cloud Privileged Access Guide to start mapping your access risks today.