Most organizations put significant effort into securing employee identities. They roll out MFA. They implement single sign-on. They automate provisioning and offboarding. They review permissions and enforce least privilege. All of this strengthens the organization’s overall security posture.
But the same level of care is rarely applied to vendor identities.
Vendors, contractors, and service providers often receive access in ways that fall outside the controls a company uses for its own staff. Shared accounts, VPN credentials, and ad-hoc access requests create blind spots in environments that otherwise have strong identity governance. And because vendors routinely access privileged systems, these unmanaged pathways introduce risk where organizations least expect it.
It is time to treat vendor access with the same discipline applied to internal identity management.
The Blind Spot in Today’s Identity Programs
Most identity programs focus on who works inside the organization. That makes sense: employees are long-term users, they work across many systems, and they are central to daily operations. But vendors typically access some of the most sensitive systems: databases, infrastructure, financial applications, security tools. Vendor identities, however, are often handled informally.
Common issues include:
- Shared privileged accounts that make it impossible to know who actually logged in
- VPN tunnels that open broad network visibility rather than limiting access
- Manual onboarding that uses email threads, spreadsheets, or ticket notes
- Forgotten accounts that remain active for months after a project ends
- Little to no session visibility, leaving audit gaps
- No unified offboarding workflow, even for vendors with admin-level access
These gaps are not created out of neglect. They are created because vendor identities do not fit neatly into the IAM tools organizations use for employees.
Why Vendor Access Requires the Same Rigor
When you step back and look at identity management through a risk lens, vendors and employees have something in common: both require controlled access to critical systems. Both can make mistakes. Both can be compromised. And both, if mismanaged, can open the door to attackers.
The difference is that vendors often have more privileged access, and their devices fall outside internal security controls.
This means vendor identities deserve equal, if not greater, attention.
1. Privileged access without visibility
Internal IAM tools enforce who logs in, what they can reach, and how long access lasts. Vendor workflows often skip these steps entirely.
2. No clear ownership
Employee access is governed by HR systems and identity teams. Vendor access often belongs to “whoever last worked with the vendor.”
3. High-impact consequences
A compromised vendor credential can provide immediate access to production systems, data, and infrastructure.
4. Compliance pressure
Cyber insurers and frameworks like CIS Controls and NIST now expect organizations to manage vendor identities with the same level of rigor as internal ones.
How VPAM Brings Vendor Access Into the Identity Fold
Vendor Privileged Access Management (VPAM) gives organizations a structured way to apply identity governance principles to external users. Instead of issuing VPN credentials or shared accounts, IT can use VPAM to centralize, control, and monitor vendor access.
- Individual identities for every vendor user
- History of vendor access to corporate resources
- Policy-driven access
- Vendors reach only the systems they are approved to work on, nothing more.
- Credential protection
- VPAM can launch privileged sessions without ever revealing passwords.
- Session auditing and recording
- IT gains a full view of what vendors do inside privileged environments.
- Clean, consistent offboarding
- Disable one VPAM account and access is removed everywhere.
- Seamless login workflows
- Vendors authenticate through the browser, with no software installation or network exposure.
In short, VPAM brings vendor access into the same governance model that identity teams already use for employees.
The Bottom Line
Identity programs are only as strong as their weakest access path. For many organizations, that weak point is vendor access. Treating vendor identities with the same rigor as internal ones, and giving IT a dedicated workflow to manage them, reduces risk, simplifies operations, and strengthens overall security posture.
VPAM gives organizations a practical, structured way to achieve this. It applies zero trust principles, eliminates shared credentials, and provides the visibility auditors and cyber insurers now expect.
If your team has invested in strong IAM for employees, VPAM is the natural next step.