A Break Glass Account (BGA) is a privileged access mechanism designed to provide emergency access to critical systems when standard authentication paths fail or are insufficient. Traditionally used for human administrators during crises—such as account lockouts or infrastructure outages—BGAs now apply to non-human identities (NHIs) like service accounts, automation pipelines, and cloud workloads in modern enterprise environments. In NHI contexts, break glass mechanisms must extend beyond static credentials, adopting dynamic, cryptographically controlled, and policy-enforced access models.
Break glass capabilities are essential for operational resilience, enabling rapid remediation during cyber incidents, outages, or misconfigurations. However, in NHI-dominated environments—where machine identities outnumber human users by more than 17:1—the risks associated with permanent, overprivileged emergency credentials are magnified. Improperly managed BGAs can become attack vectors, bypassing zero trust controls and exposing critical infrastructure. As such, modern BGA implementations must align with least privilege, enforce automated lifecycle management, and integrate seamlessly with security operations and compliance frameworks.
In practice, organizations deploy NHIs with break glass access for emergency override in scenarios such as:
Break glass accounts for NHIs differ significantly from human-centric models. They must support ephemeral workloads, dynamic entitlements, and automated access paths. NHIs typically require time-bound credentials, context-aware policy enforcement, and cryptographic validation—such as MPC-based secret sharing or TPM-bound identity attestation—to ensure both availability and security. Lifecycle automation, anomaly detection, and blockchain-backed audit trails are also critical to ensure BGAs do not become unmanaged backdoors.
Recent studies indicate that 68% of cloud breaches involve NHI credential misuse, and a growing number of incidents are linked to improperly governed emergency access mechanisms. The OWASP Top 10 for NHIs identifies poorly managed break glass access as a critical risk factor. In response, leading enterprises now integrate BGA orchestration into SOAR platforms, automate credential rotation via vault solutions, and enforce access boundaries through zero trust architectures and confidential computing.
The evolution of break glass accounts from static, human-centric credentials to dynamic, machine-governed constructs is vital for securing modern enterprises. When designed correctly, BGAs enhance resiliency without compromising security. They enable organizations to respond swiftly to incidents, maintain auditability for compliance, and uphold zero trust principles—even during emergencies. As NHI adoption continues to grow, robust break glass strategies will be essential to securing critical infrastructure at scale.
