In IT, few things inspire both confidence and fear like the concept of a break glass account. When configured correctly, it’s your fire extinguisher—tucked away behind glass with the hope it’s never needed. But when disaster strikes, it’s often the only path back to stability. Unfortunately, many organizations misuse or misconfigure these accounts, turning a safety measure into a silent vulnerability.
Let’s dive deep into what makes a break glass account effective, how to avoid common mistakes, and why modern cloud and identity platforms are moving toward more secure alternatives.
What a Break Glass Account Is (and Isn’t)
A break glass account is not part of your daily or even monthly workflow. If you’re using it regularly, you’re not dealing with a break glass scenario—you’re likely covering up for poor process design.
If you’re storing its credentials in a password manager, logging in to it from browsers, or letting multiple admins use the same account across different locations—you’re doing it wrong.
Instead, a properly configured break glass account should:
- Never appear in browser history or password managers.
- Be stored offline (e.g., printed and locked in a fireproof safe).
- Have no usage trace on the internet or within routine workflows.
- Be wired with warnings, monitoring, and alerts if ever accessed.
- Be rotated or disabled immediately after use.
In short: set it up, test it once, and hope you never touch it again.
Account Ownership and Traceability
One of the most overlooked aspects of break glass accounts is account attribution. Shared credentials are a bad practice in any environment—but when it comes to break glass accounts, they’re a disaster waiting to happen.
If you have geographically diverse teams—say, admins in three cities—you should not all share a single break glass account. Each person should have a separate one. That way, when an account is used, there’s no ambiguity: logs, alerts, and audit trails clearly identify who acted and when.
Yes, if three admins all need access, you need three break glass accounts. And if that feels like overkill, your architecture might have a workflow problem worth re-examining.
The Cloud, Conditional Access, and Gotchas
Now let’s talk about something many teams have learned the hard way: conditional access (CA) policies. We’ve seen situations where IT staff mistakenly locked themselves—and everyone else—out of the environment by deploying a CA policy that included all users, without excluding the break glass account.
That’s a major oversight. When you’re crafting CA rules, you must explicitly exclude the break glass account. Otherwise, you’ve just bricked your access and will need Microsoft Support to intervene.
This is part of a larger trend. Microsoft is nudging us away from static break glass accounts and toward identity-based, dynamic access models:
- Enforced MFA on all Global Admin accounts
- Privileged Access Management (PAM) tools to elevate access temporarily
- Auditable, revocable permissions tied to real people—not shared logins
This shift is good. It’s more secure, more transparent, and harder to misuse. Break glass accounts don’t go away entirely, but they move from being a “safety net” to a “last-ditch failsafe.”
Is the Cloud Always the Right Place?
There’s another subtle but crucial point here: cloud is not always appropriate. If you have an asset so critical that loss of internet, Lighthouse, or Azure access makes it unreachable, maybe it shouldn’t be in the cloud.
It’s worth asking: Is this something I need physical access to during a crisis? If yes, you should seriously consider on-prem hosting. Cloud is great, but it isn’t universal. Some workloads need to be under your direct control, especially those requiring break-glass-level contingency.
Final Thoughts
Break glass accounts are like fire extinguishers—you hope you never need them, but when you do, you’d better have them set up right. They’re not a workaround for weak identity practices. They’re not a substitute for well-architected roles or access governance.
If you’re a Managed Service Provider (MSP) or IT admin managing Entra ID, Azure AD, or any cloud identity system, take time to:
- Audit your break glass setup.
- Ensure every account maps to a person.
- Document and test your CA policy exclusions.
- Reevaluate what absolutely must be in the cloud.
And if you need help managing privileged accounts or identity best practices, TechIDManager is your solution.
Stay safe out there. And may you never have to break the glass.
Want to know more about TechIDManager? Schedule some time with us!
