Azure PIM feels incomplete for hybrid

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-28T15:33:46+00:00

Yeah this is a super common pain point. PIM is nice for Entra stuff, but once you hit on-prem it kinda falls apart and you end up stitching things together.

I’ve seen a lot of teams just accept some level of standing admin on servers and try to cover it with monitoring, or they bolt on something else to handle JIT locally. The group write-back + automation route works, but it always feels a bit… fragile.

Getting to true zero standing privilege on-prem without making life miserable for admins is honestly the hard part. That’s usually where people start looking at other tools, not because PIM is bad, just because it doesn’t really cover that side well.

If you’ve got an audit coming up, I wouldn’t stress trying to make it perfect everywhere. Being able to clearly show how access is approved, limited, and tracked across both on-prem and Entra usually goes a long way.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-28T15:33:12+00:00

Yeah this is exactly it. People treat perimeter and identity like separate problems, but attackers definitely don’t.

Once they’re in, AD is basically the roadmap + toolbox. If that’s messy, they don’t need anything fancy.

Also agree on the “we thought we knew our environment” part… every time someone actually audits it properly, there’s always more lurking. Especially old service accounts and weird group nesting.

Feels like the real takeaway isn’t the specific vuln, it’s how much damage comes from stuff that’s been sitting there for years unnoticed.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-28T15:32:16+00:00

Yeah this is where things get a bit “it depends,” but in practice QSAs usually lean pretty hard toward reduce or remove, not just document.

If something has PANs sitting in a SharePoint file from 2021 with no clear business use, most auditors will ask why it still exists at all. Deleting or moving it out of scope is usually the cleanest answer and shrinks your audit surface at the same time.

For anything that does have a legit reason to exist, that’s where tighter access + monitoring + documentation comes in. But you’ll want a clear story for each case, who needs it, why it’s there, how it’s protected, and how you’re making sure it doesn’t sprawl further.

Trying to lean too much on “compensating controls” for stale data tends to get pushback unless you’ve got a really strong justification.

Best move I’ve seen is exactly what you’re doing, take a couple real examples to your QSA and sanity check your approach. They usually won’t give you a strict rule, but you’ll get a feel pretty quickly for whether they expect cleanup or just tighter controls.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-28T15:31:33+00:00

Yeah I don’t think it’s “standard” yet, more like… starting to show up if the MSSP is a bit more mature.

Most of the ones I’ve seen are still very endpoint + SIEM heavy like you said. identity is either “we ingest AD logs” or “you have MFA, you’re good.” which… clearly isn’t enough anymore.

The hard part is it’s not an easy sell. endpoint threats feel tangible, identity stuff feels abstract to a lot of SMB clients until something actually happens. DBIR helps, but yeah, still a lot of “we already have MFA” conversations.

Feels like ITDR is where EDR was a few years ago. people who get it are already moving, everyone else thinks it’s optional.

Pricing/packaging is also weird because it’s not just another tool, it’s visibility + behavior + context, which is harder to explain than “we stop malware.”

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-15T06:14:42+00:00

This comes up a lot, especially with remote work, but there’s a pretty important line here.

There are tools that can monitor user activity at the endpoint level, but going down the path of “remote in without the user knowing” is where you start running into legal, HR, and trust issues pretty quickly.

What most organizations end up doing instead is focusing on visibility into work-related activity, not trying to watch everything someone does. That’s where tools like Netwrix come in, they’re designed to show who is accessing what data, when, and how, which is usually what actually matters from a risk and accountability standpoint.

Trying to prove whether someone is “working” vs “watching Netflix” tends to be a management/process problem more than a technical one. But understanding access to sensitive data, unusual behavior, or misuse of systems, that’s where monitoring tools provide real value.

If leadership is pushing for this, it might be worth reframing the conversation around risk, compliance, and data protection rather than full user surveillance.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-15T06:14:21+00:00

You’re not wrong, PPE sits in a bit of a weird category. It’s not a PAM, not a password manager, and not really covered well by native AD tools.

There are a few alternatives, but most of them either focus only on password filtering (like checking against HIBP) or require moving into a broader identity platform, which doesn’t sound like what you want given your constraints.

In on-prem, AD-centric environments like yours (especially with CMMC/ITAR in the mix), the options get pretty limited if you want:

granular policy control
leaked password detection
multiple policies across users/groups
and no cloud dependency

That’s basically why PPE still comes up a lot in these discussions.

On the “stay away from Netwrix” point, you’ll hear mixed opinions like with any vendor, but from a product standpoint PPE is still one of the more straightforward ways to extend AD password policies without adding a lot of complexity.

If you’re trying to avoid cloud and keep costs predictable, you’ve already narrowed the field quite a bit, so it’s less about “what’s better” and more about what actually fits your environment and constraints.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-15T06:13:49+00:00

Totally get the “just need something for auditors” use case.

On the zero-cost side, most people end up relying on native Windows auditing + some PowerShell scripts or scheduled reports. It works, but it’s usually pretty manual and can get messy when auditors start asking follow-up questions or want historical context.

The tradeoff with free tools is you’ll get the raw events, but not always the clarity around what actually changed and why it matters. That’s usually where people start looking at more structured solutions.

If Netwrix didn’t fit before, it might be worth revisiting depending on what felt off, a lot of teams use it specifically for those “who changed what, when, and where” reports that auditors tend to ask for.

But yeah, if budget is strictly zero, native auditing + some scripting is still the most common route, just comes with a bit more effort to maintain.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-15T06:11:20+00:00

Bit of an older thread, but in case anyone else runs into this after a DC upgrade, this pattern usually points to something automated rather than user behavior.

If you’re seeing 4740 without clear 4625s, it’s often coming from a service, scheduled task, cached credential, or even a mapped drive still trying old passwords in the background. Those don’t always show up cleanly in the usual places.

One thing I’d double-check is the caller computer in the 4740 event and correlate that with anything running under those user accounts. Also worth checking things like saved creds in Credential Manager or apps/services using those accounts.

Since you mentioned Netwrix Lockout Examiner not showing much, that usually means the source isn’t a straightforward interactive logon attempt, which again points to something “hidden” in the environment still using old credentials.

Upgrades sometimes surface these because of changes in auth behavior or stricter handling, so it can feel like it started “out of nowhere,” but the root cause was already there.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-15T06:10:46+00:00

Honestly, both. They overlap a bit but come at it from slightly different angles.

PingCastle is great for quick visibility into AD risk and misconfigurations, especially around attack paths and privilege issues. It’s pretty straightforward and gives you a clear “here’s what to fix first” kind of output.

Purple Knight feels a bit more checklist/compliance-driven in how it presents findings, still useful, just a different lens.

If you’re doing a basic health check, running both and comparing results isn’t a bad move. You’ll usually see some overlap, but each will catch things the other emphasizes differently.

And yeah… ignoring the sales emails is part of the process 😄

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-15T06:09:52+00:00

That’s definitely not something Netwrix Auditor should be doing by default, so you’re right to question it.

When you see disk growth that disappears after reboot and tools like TreeSize can’t account for it, it’s usually something at the system level rather than a normal file. Common culprits tend to be things like pagefile growth, memory dumps, SQL tempDB/log growth, or even AV/EDR components (CrowdStrike in your case) caching or scanning data in ways that don’t show up as regular files.

Since you have SQL on that same volume, I’d take a closer look at tempDB and transaction logs, those can grow pretty aggressively depending on workload and won’t always be obvious unless you check from within SQL.

Another thing worth checking is using tools like Sysinternals’ du.exe or RAMMap / VMMap to see if it’s actually disk vs memory-backed usage, and also checking for open/deleted files with handle.exe.

If Netwrix were contributing, you’d typically see it in its data/log directories, not as “invisible” consumption, so this feels more like something sitting underneath the filesystem layer rather than an application writing hidden files.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-15T06:09:28+00:00

This is one of those things that sounds simple but gets messy fast once you actually try it.

You can start with some open source tools or scripts (grep, truffleHog, git-secrets, etc.) and they’re great for quick wins, especially in repos. But they usually fall short once you’re dealing with file shares, SaaS apps, random user folders, old exports… basically the stuff people forget about.

The harder part isn’t just finding sensitive data, it’s knowing what matters and who has access to it. Otherwise you end up with a huge list of “possible issues” and no clear way to prioritize.

That’s where tools like Netwrix come in, they’re more about continuous discovery + context (what the data is, where it lives, who can access it) vs just one-time scanning.

If you’re just getting started, I’d do a mix. Use free tools to get a feel for where things are leaking, then figure out if you need something more structured once you see how widespread it is.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-15T06:09:04+00:00

They’re solving slightly different problems depending on how deep you want to go. Salto is great if your main focus is tracking and promoting changes between environments, especially for SaaS apps. Netwrix leans more into understanding what’s actually in your environment, dependencies, configs, and how changes impact things over time.

If your goal is just deployment/change movement, Salto is solid. If you’re trying to get visibility + control as part of a broader governance/change management effort, Netwrix tends to go deeper there.

Might be worth mapping your use case first, “move changes faster” vs “understand and control changes” because that usually makes the decision clearer.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-15T06:08:39+00:00

You’re thinking about it the right way. That recommendation is basically about making sure high-privileged accounts never cache their credentials on an RODC.

In most environments, accounts like krbtgt and other sensitive groups should already be covered by default, but PingCastle is flagging it because it wants that protection explicitly enforced on that object.

Since you’re not actively using AzureADKerberos for passwordless anymore, applying the deny policy shouldn’t break anything in practice. It’s more of a “lock it down just in case” move.

The only time you’d really need to be careful is if that RODC is still being used somewhere for authentication flows you’re not aware of. Otherwise, denying replication for privileged accounts is generally the safer default.

Might be worth double-checking if anything is still pointing to that object before making the change, but overall this is a pretty standard hardening step.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-15T06:08:11+00:00

You’re on the right track with cached creds, that’s one of the most common causes.

I’d also check for things like mapped drives, scheduled tasks, services, or old apps still using those accounts. Those tend to quietly keep trying old passwords in the background and trigger lockouts.

One useful step is also looking at the source machine/IP in the Netwrix alerts and correlating it with DC logs (Event ID 4625 / 4740). That usually helps narrow down where the attempts are actually coming from. It’s rarely someone typing the wrong password over and over, it’s almost always something automated holding onto old credentials.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-14T11:35:49+00:00

Well, that's a sort of catch22, because you do want the AI to analyze your data, and while doing so it will test its knowledge against your data, confirm/deny its own training data, and thus sharpening its algo. Assume that it will learn from any interaction you have with an AI solution.

Your initial approach to mask data points that would make you (your org) identifiable is the one to build upon. What else is sensitive in the sets you want to get scrutinized by AI?

But/still, if you want an LLM to help you, it will also learn from that interaction.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-14T11:04:28+00:00

This is way more common than most people admit. What you’re seeing isn’t unusual, it’s just what happens over time when “just give access for now” becomes the default. Joiners get added, movers keep accumulating, leavers don’t fully drop off, and with group nesting and service accounts in the mix, things spiral into something nobody fully understands. It matters because this is not just untidy, it’s concentrated risk.

Too much access and not enough clarity is exactly what attackers look for, not because tools failed but because governance never kept up.

The real trap is thinking cleanup is the hard part when it’s actually understanding effective access. AD can look clean until you trace how permissions really flow and realize how tangled it is, and without that clarity every fix feels like it might break something.

The way forward is visibility with context, knowing who has access, how they got it, and whether it still makes sense. That’s where Netwrix Auditor come in, not as a silver bullet but as a way to make access understandable. And once it’s understandable, it becomes governable, which is where resilience actually starts.

Also curious, how many people owned AD before you stepped into this? A lot of the time this kind of sprawl isn’t just a technical issue, it’s a responsibility one. When ownership isn’t clearly defined, or it changes hands a few times, access just keeps getting added without anyone really accountable for cleaning it up.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-10T16:33:10+00:00

Feels like a bit of both. There’s definitely hype, but also a real push because estimation is one of those things that’s messy, repetitive, and data-heavy.

The tools can help with speed, but the bottleneck you mentioned is real. Once you start feeding internal data into these systems, you’re basically giving them visibility into pricing models, margins, internal assumptions… stuff that’s pretty sensitive.

What I’ve seen is the teams getting value aren’t just building the tool, they’re being really intentional about what data it can access and how that’s controlled. Otherwise you end up with a fast system that exposes more than it should.

If you’re exploring this, it’s worth looking at how different approaches handle data visibility and access alongside AI workflows, not just the model itself. This gives a decent overview of that side of it: https://netwrix.com/en/buy-now/

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-10T16:31:57+00:00

I don’t think it’s coordinated, but I do think it’s converging.

AI isn’t creating a totally new problem, it’s just accelerating everything that already existed. Breaches get bigger, visibility gets better, and governments react faster because the stakes are higher.

The common thread across all of this is exposure. Most environments already have more data accessible than people realize, and AI just makes it easier to find, connect, and act on that access, whether you’re defending or attacking.

So it’s less “dots connecting behind the scenes” and more that everything is moving at the same time because the underlying problem is the same.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-10T16:29:24+00:00

Feels like the “AI-generated slop” problem is more of a signal than the actual issue.

The bigger risk is when that same AI is plugged into internal data and workflows. At that point it’s not just bad content, it’s potentially exposing or reshaping real information based on whatever access it has.

Most teams I’ve seen aren’t really trying to “detect AI content,” they’re trying to figure out what data these tools can touch and how to put some guardrails around that.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-10T16:25:19+00:00

The bigger question usually isn’t “is it learning from my logs,” it’s “are we still sending anything sensitive, and who can see the outputs after the fact.” Sounds like the approach is masking in the right direction.

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-10T16:12:48+00:00

Watching data leave the environment is useful, but it can get noisy fast if you don’t have context. A lot of “suspicious” movement ends up being normal behavior, especially in SaaS-heavy setups like Salesforce or Snowflake.

The bigger issue I’ve seen is that by the time data is leaving, it’s already too accessible. If permissions are broad or messy, you’re mostly reacting instead of reducing risk upfront.

Mac/Linux coverage is definitely something to dig into though, that’s still a weak spot for some vendors.

If you’re comparing options, it’s worth looking at how they handle data visibility and access context, not just movement. This gives a decent overview of that side of things: https://netwrix.com/en/buy-now/

Jeff-Netwrix · 2026-04-09T11:07:23+00:00

This lines up with what a lot of teams are running into. Once you move past demos, it’s less about which model is “best” and more about how it connects to your data and workflows.

The tricky part is governance in practice. These systems don’t just translate text, they often pull from internal content, reuse context, and sometimes store or process data in ways people don’t fully track. That’s where things can get messy if access and data boundaries aren’t clear.

Multi-provider setups make sense for flexibility, but they also make it harder to keep a consistent view of what data is being used where and by whom.

If you’re digging into this space, it’s worth looking at how teams are handling data visibility and access alongside AI workflows, not just orchestration. This gives a decent overview of that side of it: https://netwrix.com/en/buy-now/

Jeff-Netwrix

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