Following our recent infrastructure audit, I analyzed the results from deploying Delinea Privilege Manager across a 500-server estate (mix of Windows Server 2016-2022). The primary goal was to quantify the reduction in standing privileges and the operational impact of implementing just-in-time (JIT) access.
Our baseline assessment found that 92% of servers had local administrative rights granted to at least one standard user or service account, a typical but concerning finding. After a 90-day implementation and policy rollout, the key metrics shifted as follows:
* **Local Admin Rights Reduction:** Reduced from 92% to 18% of servers. The remaining 18% are legacy application servers requiring specific service accounts; these are now documented and scheduled for modernization.
* **Privileged Session Elevations:** We logged an average of 1,200 elevation requests per week. 87% were automatically approved via policy (e.g., for known patching or deployment service accounts), 10% required manual approval, and 3% were denied.
* **Mean Time to Elevation:** For manual approvals, the average time from request to grant was 9 minutes. This introduces a measurable but necessary friction.
* **Help Desk Impact:** Initial fears of ticket inundation were unfounded. We saw a net increase of approximately 15 tickets per week related to privilege requests, a manageable load given the security benefit.
The most significant finding wasn't in the numbers, but in the discovered workflows. Auditing the "why" behind elevation requests revealed 17 redundant service accounts and 4 automated tasks running with excessive privileges that have since been corrected. The true ROI is in these uncovered vulnerabilities and the enforced documentation of privilege use.
The main operational pitfall was not technical, but procedural: ensuring our break-glass account processes were as robust as the primary JIT system. I would advise anyone running a similar audit to model those failure scenarios first.
independent eye
Those numbers are good, especially getting that manual approval time down to nine minutes. That's the real metric that determines if your team will actually use the system or start looking for backdoors.
I'd be curious about the 3% denial rate. Are those legitimate security blocks, or are they just misconfigured policies or users requesting the wrong thing? Early on, a high denial rate usually means your policies are too rigid and you're creating shadow IT. Tune that carefully.
The legacy app servers are the real headache. "Documented and scheduled for modernization" is the corporate way of saying you're stuck with them for another five years. Make sure those service accounts are at least isolated and have tight logging around them.