2026 WINNER · CYBERSECURITY STARS AWARDS
Britive · Runtime Identity Control Plane
Best Cloud Privileged Access Management Platform
Overview
Britive is the runtime identity security control plane. Founded in 2018 by a team of identity and access management experts, Britive was built to address a structural reality of modern enterprise environments: traditional Privileged Access Management platforms, built around vaults, static credentials, and proxy-based access, cover only a fraction of the privilege surface in a cloud-first enterprise. They were designed for fixed infrastructure and human-paced workflows. They make access decisions at session start, then walk away, leaving standing credentials in pipelines, on developer laptops, and in agent memory until policy expiration or rotation.
Britive replaces that architecture with one designed for the speed and scale of cloud-native operations. The platform creates privileged access on the target at runtime. The right to act does not exist on the system until Britive puts it there. Authorization is evaluated continuously through the session, against current context, risk, and policy. Access is revoked the moment context changes.
Since its inception, Britive has delivered a series of structural innovations in identity security. Its patented Just-in-Time (JIT) technology enables true Zero Standing Privileges by creating ephemeral access dynamically at runtime via native cloud APIs. Its proxy-less, agentless architecture removes the operational complexity, latency, and single points of failure that constrained earlier generations of PAM. As the first comprehensive PAM platform to natively support the OpenID Shared Signals Framework, Britive enables continuous Zero Trust by responding to real-time risk signals and revoking active sessions the moment a threat is detected.
Today, Britive applies one runtime control point to human, agentic AI, and non-human identities across AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, SaaS, Kubernetes, hybrid, and on-prem environments, enabling enterprises to operate with both speed and security in an increasingly AI-driven world.
Description of the Product/Solution/Service
Britive is a cloud-native runtime identity control plane that creates privileged access at runtime, evaluates authorization continuously, and revokes it the moment context changes across human, agentic AI, and non-human identities.
The platform is structured around a four-step architecture. Discover identifies what exists across every identity type, including shadow accounts, orphaned service accounts, and unmanaged AI agents. Authorize evaluates identity context at runtime, against current risk, posture, and policy. Enforce creates ephemeral privilege scoped to the task, provisioned dynamically through native cloud APIs, valid only for the duration of the work. Prove maintains an audit trail that is current by architecture, not assembled quarterly through manual reconstruction.
Unlike traditional, vault-based PAM solutions that store credentials and broker sessions, Britive does not issue access and walk away. Privilege is created on the target at the moment of the request and removed when the action ends. This eliminates the long-lived credentials that attackers most consistently target, and dramatically reduces the privileged attack surface without slowing engineering velocity.
The platform's API-first, proxy-less, agentless architecture integrates seamlessly with identity providers, DevOps pipelines, Infrastructure-as-Code workflows, and developer-native tools. Engineers request and obtain scoped access through the PyBritive CLI, browser extensions, ChatOps integrations, and IaC without context-switching into a separate access portal. The Access Builder enables teams to define granular, task-specific access profiles without manual ticketing delays.
Britive applies the same runtime control point to all three identity types. For human users, access fits existing workflows without standing privileges. For non-human identities — service accounts, workloads, pipelines, and machine identities, which are deterministic and operate within predictable scope — Britive replaces long-lived credentials with identity-bound, runtime-enforced privilege. For agentic AI — which is non-deterministic, reasoning and acting at machine speed in ways static permission models cannot anticipate — Britive evaluates every action against policy in the moment, with privilege created for the task and removed when the work ends.
By eliminating standing privileges, unifying access governance, and securing every identity type under one runtime control point, Britive provides a modern, scalable architecture for privileged access — positioned for the cloud and AI environments that traditional PAM was never designed to serve.
Key Capabilities
Britive delivers a cloud-native runtime identity control plane designed to eliminate standing privileges while enabling secure, high-velocity operations across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Its differentiated capabilities include:
Continuous Authorization with Native OpenID SSF Support
Britive is the first comprehensive PAM platform to natively support the OpenID Shared Signals Framework, enabling real-time consumption of risk signals from identity providers and endpoint security tools. Authorization is evaluated continuously through the session, not just at the moment of login, and active sessions can be revoked the instant a risk signal is triggered. Authorization decides. Enforcement acts. With SSF, both remain continuous.
Patented Just-in-Time Privilege Creation
At the core of the platform is patented JIT technology that creates ephemeral, task-specific privilege dynamically via native cloud APIs. The right to act does not exist on the target system until Britive puts it there, and is removed automatically when the task ends. This delivers true Zero Standing Privileges — by architecture, not by configuration.
Proxy-Less, Agentless Architecture
Britive's SaaS-based, API-first design eliminates the need for proxies, jump hosts, or endpoint agents. This removes the operational complexity and single points of failure that constrained earlier PAM architectures, and enables rapid deployment, often in a matter of weeks, across public cloud, private infrastructure, and on-prem environments.
Frictionless Developer and Operator Workflows
Britive embeds runtime access directly into the workflows engineers already use. Through the PyBritive CLI, ChatOps integrations, browser extensions, and Terraform provider, users request and obtain scoped access in context, without separate portals or ticket queues. The Access Builder empowers teams to create granular, task-specific roles without manual approval cycles, significantly compressing approval times while maintaining strong governance.
One Runtime Control Point for Human, Agentic AI, and Non-Human Identities
Britive applies the same runtime authorization model, the same policy engine, and the same audit trail to every identity class. Engineers, administrators, and business users operate without standing privileges. Service accounts, workloads, and pipelines run on runtime-enforced privilege instead of long-lived credentials. Agentic AI identities — including MCP-connected agents, copilots, and autonomous workflows on platforms like Bedrock, Vertex, and Agentforce — are evaluated per action, with privilege scoped to the call and removed when the task ends. Drawing on more than 60 agentic AI engagements with enterprise customers, Britive has developed deep architectural expertise in securing AI identities at runtime.
Modern Secrets Management for Hybrid Environments
For systems that still require persistent credentials, Britive's Access Broker provides modern secrets management — including automated rotation, synchronization across environments, and version control — keeping the entire access strategy under one control plane while traditional vaults remain available for legacy needs.
Audit-Ready Compliance and Visibility
Britive provides centralized policy enforcement, detailed activity logging tied to named identities, and a complete, timestamped audit trail of every privileged action that stays current by design of the products architecture, rather than something to be assembled quarterly. Native integrations with SIEM, SOAR, and data-lake destinations simplify reporting and help organizations meet regulatory requirements including SOC 2, PCI DSS v4.0, NIST CSF, GDPR, and NYDFS.
Together, these capabilities position Britive as the runtime identity control plane — enabling organizations to eliminate standing access, enforce Zero Trust continuously, and securely scale across cloud, DevOps, and emerging AI-driven environments.
How we are different
Britive stands apart by redefining what privileged access management is architecturally, moving beyond managing standing credentials to creating privilege only when work requires it, then removing it when the task ends.
The platform's foundation is continuous authorization, enabled by native OpenID Shared Signals Framework support. Traditional PAM platforms decide access at session start, then carry that decision through a session-long token until expiry. Britive evaluates whether a session, principal, or agent still has the right to act throughout the session and can terminate any active session the moment a risk signal is triggered by an identity provider, endpoint detection tool, or behavioral anomaly. This means protection extends across the full lifecycle of access, not just the moment of login.
At the core of the platform is patented Just-in-Time privilege creation, which enables true Zero Standing Privileges by architecture. Rather than storing or brokering access, Britive creates privilege on the target system at runtime via native cloud APIs. Access exists only for the exact duration of a task and is automatically revoked upon completion. Nothing persists before or after use, eliminating the standing credentials that attackers most consistently target and dramatically reducing the privileged attack surface.
Britive is purpose-built for cloud-native operations with a proxy-less, agentless architecture, eliminating the operational burden, latency, and single points of failure that constrained earlier PAM generations. This modern design allows organizations to deploy quickly and secure access across public cloud, SaaS, on-prem, and private environments while integrating directly into CI/CD pipelines and Infrastructure-as-Code workflows.
Equally important is Britive's focus on usability and adoption. By embedding secure access directly into native workflows through tools like the PyBritive CLI, browser extension, Terraform provider, and ChatOps integrations, Britive removes the friction of traditional access request processes. Users can build and request granular access profiles in context, significantly reducing approval times while maintaining strong governance.
Britive delivers a single runtime control point across AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, SaaS applications, Kubernetes, and on-prem systems for human, agentic AI, and non-human identities under a single policy engine and unified audit trail. Notably, Britive is the only PAM platform included among select ISVs in the AWS Security Hub Extended Plan, enabling customers to operationalize identity security alongside their broader cloud security investments. The placement reflects an architectural alignment that few PAM platforms can claim: Britive enforces at runtime; AWS Security Hub Extended makes every runtime decision visible to the SOC.
Looking ahead, Britive is defining how privileged access must work in the agentic AI era. As autonomous agents become embedded across enterprise operations — reasoning, calling tools, and acting at machine speed — Britive applies the same runtime control point that governs human privileged access to agent actions. Privilege is created for the task, evaluated against policy per action, and revoked when the work ends. With more than 60 enterprise agentic AI engagements completed to date, Britive's architectural approach to securing AI identities at runtime is informed by direct deployment experience with production agentic systems.
Britive's differentiation is validated by strong market traction, including enterprise adoption, 100% customer retention, and continued growth in customers and revenue.
Together, these innovations position Britive as the runtime identity control plane, setting a new standard for securing privileged access in the cloud and AI era.
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