How to do local admin rights management at scale. Most IT teams underestimate the importance of local admin rights management, leading to security and compliance issues. In this video, we'll show you how to build a proactive framework that you can enforce at scale for admin access requests. Before we begin, be sure to subscribe to NinjaOne's IT Video Hub and our YouTube channel for more tech content like this. Build a local admin rights register. Start by building your local admin rights register. This acts as your single source of truth. Use a PowerShell script or your RMM tool to discover every member of the local administrators group across your devices. Then document each non-default entry, including the user, business justification, approval ticket, owner, grant date, and a mandatory expiration date. Replace the standing access with a time-bound elevation. Next, replace standing access with time-bound elevation. Make zero standing privilege your default policy so that nobody gets permanent local admin rights. Grant access for a short, predefined window tied to a specific ticket or change request. You can also use a PAM solution or a privilege elevation tool to automate the process. Standardize requests, reviews, and exceptions. Every request should go through a mandatory request form that captures the user, justification, risk level, affected systems, duration, and approver. High-risk requests should be automatically escalated to a security reviewer, and every exception should have a hard expiry date and a designated owner. Monitor membership and detect drift. Automate regular scans that compare your actual local administrators group members against your approved register. Flag any discrepancies immediately. This could be unapproved users, over-permissioned groups, or expired accounts. Once the issue is resolved, require a postmortem to capture the root cause, prevent recurrence, and maintain evidence of compliance for audits. Conduct recurring permission reviews. Run monthly spot checks and formal quarterly reviews. Ensure every admin still has a legitimate business need. Confirm active expiration dates and revoke anything stale. Regularly rotate emergency account passwords and log attestations from business owners. Implement guardrails for break glass and service accounts. Secure break glass passwords in a vault and log every access. Change break glass credentials regularly, prohibit routine use, and log every access. For service accounts that need admin rights, document the justification, restrict interactive logon, and review usage logs regularly. Publish evidence and KPIs. Build a monthly dashboard tracking these metrics on screen. Analyze recurring trends and develop a brief narrative to demonstrate your proactive risk reduction efforts and build client trust. Local admin rights are one of the most common attack vectors IT teams overlook. But with a structured governance framework, you can turn them into a controlled and auditable security process. For more information, check out our official blog post on how to govern local admin rights at scale, linked in the description below.