Delinea buys StrongDM to boost AI-era identity security

Delinea has completed its acquisition of StrongDM, folding the access management vendor into its identity security platform as organisations expand automation and agentic AI across hybrid and cloud environments.

StrongDM develops what it calls universal access management for engineering and DevOps teams. Delinea sells privileged access management tools that control elevated permissions for people and systems. Together, the companies are emphasising just-in-time authorisation and policy checks applied when a user or automated process attempts an action, rather than relying on long-lived credentials.

The deal comes as security teams contend with a growing number of non-human identities, including service accounts, automation tools, and AI agents. These identities often require privileged access across infrastructure, databases, and cloud services. Many organisations still manage that access with static credentials and standing permissions, increasing the potential impact if an account is compromised.

Shift In Access

Delinea framed the acquisition as a way to reduce reliance on persistent privileges by pairing StrongDM's runtime authorisation with its existing privileged access controls. The model centres on just-in-time access that is evaluated as actions occur and governed centrally.

"Standing and hard-coded privileges remain one of the largest sources of risk in modern, AI-driven environments," said Art Gilliland, CEO of Delinea. "Security teams have historically had to balance between strong identity governance policies and maintaining developer and operational speed. By bringing StrongDM's runtime authorisation capabilities to the Delinea Platform, we're empowering rapid and secure AI adoption for our customers."

The combined platform is expected to integrate StrongDM's authorisation technology into the Delinea Platform. The product roadmap includes real-time evaluation of access policies for privileged actions taken by both human and non-human identities across modern infrastructure. Delinea's Iris AI is expected to sit within the platform, alongside real-time policy evaluation and governance features.

Control Plane Focus

Both companies describe a "control plane" as a central layer for identity security decisions. In practice, this refers to a system that discovers identities across environments, applies policies consistently across resources such as databases and cloud services, and provides logging and audit trails for privileged actions.

The combined offering is intended to cover discovery and governance of privileged access for human and non-human identities across infrastructure, databases, containers, and CI/CD pipelines. Delinea also said the approach reduces exposure to credential theft, phishing, and software supply chain attacks by minimising persistent credentials.

The acquisition also reflects how privileged access management is moving closer to daily engineering workflows. Organisations want developers and operators to gain access quickly without leaving standing permissions in place. Just-in-time controls aim to match access windows to operational needs, with authorisation decisions made at the time of use.

Industry View

IDC Senior Research Analyst Emanuel Figueroa said the spread of agentic AI is increasing pressure on static privilege models designed for a smaller number of human administrators and long-lived systems.

"The rise of agentic AI and non-human identities is accelerating operational workflows to machine speed, exposing the limits of static privilege models," said Emanuel Figueroa, Senior Research Analyst at IDC. "By incorporating StrongDM's JIT runtime capabilities into the Delinea Platform, organisations can extend Zero Trust to the precise moment of action and advance toward ZSP across both traditional and cloud-native environments."

Customer Impact

Axos Financial expects the combined platform to cover both traditional infrastructure and newer cloud and database environments. The bank's security leadership described Delinea as established in its environment, with StrongDM fitting newer workflows that need time-bound access controls.

"I'm genuinely excited about the possibilities of a unified platform. Delinea has done an excellent job securing privileged access across traditional infrastructure for nearly a decade at Axos, while StrongDM solved just‐in‐time access in innovative ways for modern database and cloud environments. When Delinea articulated a vision to bring these capabilities together, it immediately resonated with how we operate and where we're headed. The combined platform will significantly strengthen our security posture by enabling continuous discovery, governance, and real‐time enforcement of least‐privilege access across critical systems and data, which supports our AI initiatives and accelerates our move toward ZSP in alignment with business priorities."

Financial terms were not disclosed. Delinea said it will position identity as the central point for security decisions, evaluating and authorising privileged actions in real time as organisations expand AI-driven automation across complex environments.