Approach where access is switched on only at the moment it is needed and expires after a set time; examples are PIM role activation and JIT VM access, which opens ports 3389 or 22 temporarily.
Also called just-in-time.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
AZ-305AZ-104SC-5002V0-17.25SC-900AB-900AZ-802MD-102
Each book explains JIT in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- WHERE
Limits a SELECT, UPDATE or DELETE to just the rows meeting a condition. Omit it, and the statement hits every row.
- Set
Secret permission in Key Vault for writing secrets; some older material refers to it as Create.
- Privileged Identity Management
Capability in Microsoft Entra ID P2 that activates privileged roles just in time and for limited periods, with approval, justification and an audit trail.
- Role
How an actor normally or expectedly behaves, or the part a person takes in a process. A single actor may hold more than one role.
- Just-in-time VM access
Defender for Servers capability that keeps management ports closed through deny rules in an NSG or Azure Firewall, then opens them temporarily for the requester's IP, by default for at most 3 hours. VMs lacking either control aren't supported.
Related terms
- Defender for Servers Plan 1
The lower of the two Defender for Servers tiers: it includes Defender for Endpoint integration, giving EDR and anti-malware, plus vulnerability assessment through an agent. JIT access, FIM and agentless scanning come only with Plan 2.
- JEA
Just-enough access, a Zero Trust idea where every identity receives only the rights a given job requires; paired with just-in-time access, it puts least privilege into practice.
- JIT pre-provisioning
Just-in-time option that makes groups up front so roles can be granted to them early; people are placed into those groups when they first sign in.
- JIT runner
Just-in-time self-hosted runner for GitHub Actions: made via the REST API, it takes one job and then disappears, as with --ephemeral. Handy for autoscaling and limits how long a compromise can persist.