In cybersecurity, identity is critical. And with identity, you absolutely, positively must be able to answer the questions that matter most: who is accessing your systems, what they can reach, and whether that access is appropriate.
Security teams have been working to get reliable answers for decades. It was easier when everyone was working from the same site, or at least behind the same firewall. But today, users could be working from just about anywhere, and they may need access to applications and resources in the cloud, across multiple clouds, or in a data center.
Trying to secure, govern, and manage users across these environments can be complicated. In the sections that follow, we will cover the identity and access questions security teams should be asking and explain how identity governance helps you turn those answers into stronger controls, reduced risk, and clearer compliance evidence.
Identity governance is important because it helps you control and prove who has access to what, why they have it, and how that access changes over time. In hybrid environments, it is the difference between assuming least privilege and actually enforcing it.
Without governance, access sprawl grows quietly as users change roles, new apps appear, and exceptions become permanent. That increases breach impact, slows investigations, and makes audits harder.
Before you can reduce identity risk, you need reliable answers about sign-in trust and access visibility. Start by separating verifying identity from understanding what access exists across systems and environments.
Are users who they say they are?
Identity and access management (IAM) verifies a user’s identity at sign-in and decides whether they should be allowed into a system. In practice, that means authenticating the user and then authorizing access to the right resources, often using multi-factor authentication (MFA).
IAM is essential, but it is only the first step. Once a user is in, security teams still need visibility into what that user can access across SaaS apps, multi-cloud infrastructure, IoT devices, and third-party systems. Without that visibility, it is harder to spot risky access, prioritize identity threats, and support security and privacy requirements.
Who is on the system and what can they access?
Identity governance and administration (IGA) provides visibility and control over who has access to what, across cloud and on-premises environments. It helps teams determine what access exists, whether it is appropriate, and how it should change over time.
Most IGA programs focus on four core capabilities:
- Identity governance: Understand and review who has access to what, including high-risk users, roles, and applications.
- Identity lifecycle: Automate joiner, mover, and leaver processes, including requests, approvals, provisioning, and policy enforcement.
- Data access governance: Identify who can access unstructured data, detect problematic access, and remediate quickly.
- Business role management: Define roles and policies, reduce role sprawl, and automate role certification.
When identity is misused or compromised, excessive or unclear access increases impact. A centralized view of access helps teams detect problems earlier, support compliance needs (including SOX, HIPAA, and GDPR), and reduce manual work tied to certifications, requests, and provisioning.
Knowing who has access is only part of the problem. The next step is making sure access is justified, appropriate for the role, and constrained by policy and risk.
Why do users need access to specific resources?
Users need access to resources to perform defined job responsibilities, not because they have an account or belong to a department. Identity governance helps you tie access to a clear business justification, role, and owner-approved policy.
Tactically, this usually means setting role-based or policy-based access models, requiring a stated purpose for exceptions, and assigning application and data owners who can approve access based on risk and necessity. Over time, governance reduces “access drift” by re-validating whether access is still required as users change roles or projects.
What will users do with certain access?
Access is not just a yes or no decision. It determines what actions a user can take, which data they can reach, and how much damage a compromised account could cause.
Identity governance helps teams evaluate access based on risk, including privileged actions, sensitive data exposure, and toxic combinations of access that should never exist together. In practice, this is where you introduce least privilege, separation of duties, access certifications, and targeted remediation workflows for high-risk entitlements. This is also where continuous access assurance capabilities, like those in RSA Governance & Lifecycle, support faster detection and remediation.
How do you define least privilege in practice?
Least privilege means users have only the access they need to do their job, for the time they need it, and nothing more. It is not a one-time decision. It is a continuous discipline.
Teams define role-based access and “default” access packages, then treat anything outside the standard as an exception that needs justification and approval. Ongoing access reviews, separation of duties checks, and targeted cleanup of high-risk entitlements prevent privilege creep as the environment changes.
Access changes constantly as people join, change roles, and leave. Strong governance keeps entitlements accurate through repeatable workflows, timely updates, and reviews that lead to real remediation.
How do joiner, mover, and leaver processes reduce risk?
Joiner, mover, and leaver processes reduce risk by aligning access with employment status and role changes, so access does not linger after it is no longer needed. When these workflows break down, orphaned accounts and outdated permissions become easy paths for misuse.
The practical goal is consistency and speed. A good lifecycle process automates requests, approvals, provisioning, and deprovisioning across systems, and it records what changed and why. That reduces access sprawl, limits breach impact, and makes investigations and audits far easier.
How do access reviews and certifications actually work?
Access reviews and certifications work by having the right reviewers confirm whether a user’s access is still appropriate, based on role, policy, and risk. The output is a set of decisions, approve, revoke, or adjust, that should result in actual remediation.
Done well, reviews are scoped to meaningful access, routed to accountable owners, and prioritized around high-risk entitlements. They also produce audit-ready evidence by tracking who reviewed what, what they decided, when they decided it, and whether the changes were completed and verified.
Identity governance should be part of every cyber risk strategy because most meaningful risk decisions are access decisions. If you cannot confidently explain who has access, why they have it, and whether it is appropriate, you cannot consistently reduce risk, respond quickly, or produce audit-ready evidence.
Governance operationalizes risk strategy by making access measurable and enforceable. It helps teams prioritize remediation based on impact, reduce over-entitlement, and prevent orphaned access through joiner, mover, and leaver automation. Many teams also shift their program beyond checkbox compliance by applying a risk lens to access decisions, as described in RSA’s perspective on why governance needs a risk lens.
Strong identity security requires both verification at sign-in and governance after access is granted. RSA solutions and products support that full view, from authentication to ongoing access assurance across hybrid environments.
To learn more, explore RSA Governance & Lifecycle for continuous access assurance, and RSA’s authentication capabilities including multi-factor authentication (MFA) and passwordless authentication.
Identity and access management (IAM) verifies a user’s identity at sign-in and determines whether they should be allowed into a system. It authenticates the user and authorizes access to the right resources, often using multi-factor authentication (MFA). IAM is essential, but it is only the first step. Once a user is in, security teams still need visibility into what that user can access across SaaS apps, multi-cloud infrastructure, IoT devices, and third-party systems.
Identity governance and administration (IGA) provides visibility and control over who has access to what across cloud and on-premises environments. It helps teams determine what access exists, whether it is appropriate, and how it should change over time. Most IGA programs focus on identity governance, identity lifecycle, data access governance, and business role management. A centralized view of access helps teams detect problems earlier, support compliance needs, and reduce manual work tied to certifications, requests, and provisioning.
Users need access to resources to perform defined job responsibilities, not because they have an account or belong to a department. Identity governance ties access to a clear business justification, role, and owner-approved policy. In practice, this means using role-based or policy-based access models, requiring a stated purpose for exceptions, and assigning application and data owners who can approve access based on risk and necessity.
Access is not just a yes or no decision. It determines what actions a user can take, which data they can reach, and how much damage a compromised account could cause. Identity governance helps teams evaluate access based on risk, including privileged actions, sensitive data exposure, and toxic combinations of access that should never exist together. It supports least privilege, separation of duties, access certifications, and remediation workflows for high-risk entitlements.
Least privilege means users have only the access they need to do their job, for the time they need it, and nothing more. Teams define role-based access and default access packages, then treat anything outside the standard as an exception that needs justification and approval. Ongoing access reviews, separation of duties checks, and targeted cleanup of high-risk entitlements prevent privilege creep as the environment changes.
Joiner, mover, and leaver processes reduce risk by aligning access with employment status and role changes, so access does not linger after it is no longer needed. A good lifecycle process automates requests, approvals, provisioning, and deprovisioning across systems, and records what changed and why. This reduces access sprawl, limits breach impact, and makes investigations and audits easier.
Access reviews and certifications work by having the right reviewers confirm whether a user’s access is still appropriate based on role, policy, and risk. Reviewers approve, revoke, or adjust access, and the decisions should result in actual remediation. Done well, reviews are scoped to meaningful access, routed to accountable owners, prioritized around high-risk entitlements, and tracked as audit-ready evidence.
