Chasing Digital Ghosts Across Modern IGA Environments
CyberArk, Thursday, January 29th, 2026
In Pac-Man, ghosts seem pretty easy to dodge. You're clearing the maze, racking up points, three more pellets away from leveling up. Then, out of nowhere, they close in and cut off all hope of escape. Womp womp. Game over.
In today's enterprise environments, 'ghost' or orphaned accounts represent a similar hidden risk. They appear low-impact, lingering in forgotten corners of the IT maze. But ignore them-or grow overconfident-and attackers can quietly exploit them as tunnels and backdoors, overwhelming you when you least expect it.
Understanding orphaned accounts in identity governance
Orphaned accounts are user or service accounts that remain active even after the person or process they were tied to has left or no longer needs access. In other words, they have no valid owner or purpose, yet still exist across your applications, infrastructure, or cloud environments.