Delinea StrongDM acquisition has been completed, marking a significant move in identity security and privileged access management. Delinea, a provider of solutions that secure human and machine identities through centralized authorization, has acquired StrongDM, a universal access management company designed for modern engineering, DevOps, and AI-driven environments.

The acquisition comes as enterprises scale agentic AI and automation. As a result, privileged access is increasingly required by non-human identities that operate autonomously across hybrid and cloud-native environments. These identities introduce new risks that traditional credential-based models were not designed to manage.

By combining Delinea’s enterprise privileged access management (PAM) capabilities with StrongDM’s just-in-time (JIT) runtime authorization, organizations can discover every identity and enforce least-privilege access at the moment of action. This approach aims to make Zero Standing Privilege (ZSP) achievable in real-world environments.

Art Gilliland, CEO of Delinea, said standing and hard-coded privileges remain among the largest security risks in AI-driven environments. He noted that security teams have historically needed to balance strong identity governance with maintaining developer productivity and operational speed. By integrating StrongDM’s runtime authorization capabilities into the Delinea platform, he said the company aims to support rapid and secure AI adoption.

The combined platform brings together enterprise PAM and runtime authorization into a unified identity security control plane powered by Delinea Iris AI. This system enables real-time policy evaluation and governance of privileged actions taken by both human and non-human identities across modern infrastructure.

Together, Delinea and StrongDM will enable discovery and governance of privileged access for human and machine identities across infrastructure, databases, containers, and CI/CD pipelines. The platform also reduces exposure to credential theft, phishing, and software supply chain attacks by minimizing persistent credentials.

In addition, the platform introduces real-time governance of privileged actions performed by AI agents and other non-human identities. Centralized visibility, auditing, and enforcement are designed to strengthen identity security across complex digital environments.

Emanuel Figueroa of IDC said the rise of agentic AI and non-human identities is accelerating workflows to machine speed. He added that incorporating StrongDM’s JIT runtime capabilities into the Delinea platform allows organizations to extend Zero Trust security to the precise moment of action while advancing toward Zero Standing Privilege across traditional and cloud-native environments.

Raghu Valipireddy, SVP and chief information security officer at Axos Financial, said the unified platform offers significant possibilities for organizations. He noted that Delinea has secured privileged access across traditional infrastructure for nearly a decade at Axos, while StrongDM introduced innovative just-in-time access for modern database and cloud environments.

Valipireddy added that the combined platform will strengthen the company’s security posture through continuous discovery, governance, and real-time enforcement of least-privilege access across critical systems and data. This approach also supports Axos Financial’s AI initiatives and helps accelerate its transition toward Zero Standing Privilege.

With the acquisition completed, Delinea said identity will serve as the control plane for modern security. Every privileged action taken by a human or machine identity will be evaluated and authorized in real time. The company stated that the integration of capabilities through the Delinea StrongDM platform will help organizations eliminate standing privilege across AI-driven environments.

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