Google Cloud IAP alternatives expose the limits of access centralization

At a glance

What this is: This comparison shows where Google Cloud IAP fits, and where its model stops short for multi-cloud access governance.

Why it matters: IAM, PAM, and NHI teams need to see that access centralization without credential hiding, session logging, and cross-environment coverage leaves governance gaps across human, workload, and privileged access.

By the numbers:

• Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts.
• 97% of NHIs carry excessive privileges, increasing unauthorised access and broadening the attack surface.
• Only 44% of organisations have implemented any policies to manage their AI agents, despite 92% agreeing that governing AI agents is critical to enterprise security.

👉 Read StrongDM's comparison of Google Cloud IAP alternatives

Context

Google Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy is an access gateway for GCP resources and HTTPS applications, but its governance model is tied closely to Google Cloud assumptions. The primary keyword here is Google Cloud IAP alternatives, and the question for practitioners is whether a control built for centralising user access can also govern databases, servers, Kubernetes, and mixed cloud estates without leaving blind spots.

That distinction matters because IAM programmes rarely fail only at authentication. They fail when access is hard to observe, credentials are exposed to users, session activity is not fully logged, and third-party or cross-platform access becomes difficult to standardise. For teams managing human access, workload identities, and privileged sessions, those are governance problems, not just deployment preferences.

Key questions

Q: How should security teams choose between Google Cloud IAP and a privileged access platform?

A: Choose based on what you need to govern, not on authentication alone. If the use case is limited to GCP web access and a narrow set of supported resources, IAP may fit. If you need centralised control for databases, servers, Kubernetes, SSH, RDP, and session evidence across environments, you need a broader privileged access model.

Q: Why does access control become harder in multi-cloud environments?

A: Multi-cloud environments split identity, protocol, and audit responsibility across different control planes. A tool that works well for one cloud-native path may not govern hybrid access, third-party access, or in-session activity consistently. The result is not just complexity but uneven visibility into who entered, what they touched, and how revocation is enforced.

Q: What breaks when a gateway controls login but not in-session activity?

A: The organisation can approve entry without governing what happens after authentication. That creates a blind spot for queries, shell commands, configuration changes, and data movement. In practice, teams may think access is controlled while the highest-risk actions remain outside the policy boundary and outside the audit trail.

Q: What is the difference between access centralisation and privileged access governance?

A: Access centralisation focuses on one place to authenticate and authorise entry. Privileged access governance goes further by hiding secrets, limiting session scope, logging actions, and supporting clean revocation. Centralisation can reduce friction, but governance is only complete when the organisation can prove what was accessed and by whom.

Technical breakdown

Why IAP fits GCP access better than multi-cloud access

Identity-Aware Proxy sits in front of supported applications and resources, making access decisions after identity and policy checks. In GCP-centric environments, that model can simplify access to web apps, VM-based services, SSH, and RDP. The limitation appears when the access pattern expands into databases, Kubernetes, multiple clouds, or on-premises systems. At that point, the proxy is no longer just a gate. It becomes one control among several, and its coverage depends on additional configuration, client components, and the surrounding cloud architecture.

Practical implication: map where IAP ends and where another access control plane must take over.

How credential hiding changes privileged access governance

The article contrasts IAP with tools that hide underlying credentials from end users. That matters because exposed database passwords, SSH keys, and tokens create a different risk profile from mediated access. When users can never see the secret, the organisation reduces the chance of reuse, exfiltration, or informal sharing. This is the practical line between an authentication layer and a privileged access model. For NHI governance, the key issue is whether the control plane only authenticates a request or also prevents credentials from becoming durable assets in the first place.

Practical implication: classify whether your access layer merely brokers identity or actually suppresses secret exposure.

Why session logging matters more than access approval

IAP can control entry, but the article itself notes that it does not protect against activity within a project. That is the difference between authorising a session and governing what happens during it. In privileged environments, the real control gap often sits after login, where queries, shell commands, kubectl actions, and lateral movement can occur without enough forensic detail. Access governance therefore needs both admission control and session-level evidence. Without that second layer, the organisation may know who was allowed in, but not what they did once inside.

Practical implication: require session-level audit evidence wherever access can change state, data, or configuration.

Breaches seen in the wild

• Cisco DevHub NHI breach — IntelBroker exploited exposed Cisco credentials, API tokens and keys in DevHub.
• Google Firebase misconfiguration breach — Firebase misconfigurations exposed 19.8M secrets across developer instances.

Read our 52 NHI Breaches Analysis report for a comprehensive view of breaches impacting Non-Human Identities including AI Agents.

NHI Mgmt Group analysis

Google Cloud IAP alternatives are really a question about access scope, not access quality. The article shows that a proxy can be strong at centralising entry and still be weak at governing the wider resource estate. That distinction is crucial for IAM teams because the access problem changes once databases, servers, and Kubernetes enter the same operating model. The practitioner conclusion is simple: evaluate the full control plane, not just the login gate.

Session visibility gap: A control that authenticates entry but does not govern in-session activity leaves the most important part of privileged access outside policy reach. The article explicitly calls out that IAP does not protect activity within a project, which means the organisation may still lack audit-grade evidence for command execution, query activity, or resource changes. That is not a minor feature omission; it is a governance boundary. The practitioner conclusion is to treat post-authentication observability as a first-class requirement.

Multi-cloud access exposes the limits of cloud-native identity assumptions. IAP is positioned around GCP-native patterns, but practitioners now run estates that blend cloud, hybrid, and third-party access. In that environment, access control must follow the workload and the session, not the cloud brand. The practitioner conclusion is to test whether the access architecture still works when identity, protocol, and infrastructure stop sharing the same control plane.

Named concept: access-plane fragmentation. This article illustrates how organisations accumulate separate tools for web access, SSH, RDP, database access, and Kubernetes rather than one governable model. Fragmentation increases operational drag, complicates offboarding, and weakens evidence collection because each plane records different facts. The practitioner conclusion is to assess whether access controls can be recertified, revoked, and audited as one programme instead of many disconnected products.

Privileged access governance now has to cover users, service credentials, and operational sessions together. The article’s comparison between IAP, StrongDM, Okta ASA, and Teleport shows that teams are not only choosing an access product, they are choosing which part of the identity lifecycle is actually controlled. If credentials remain visible, sessions remain partially opaque, or access policies differ by platform, governance is incomplete. The practitioner conclusion is to align access tooling with lifecycle control, not just authentication convenience.

From our research:

• Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, according to Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
• In the same research, 96% of organisations store secrets outside of secrets managers in vulnerable locations including code, config files, and CI/CD tools.
• For a broader governance baseline, review Ultimate Guide to NHIs , Key Challenges and Risks for visibility, rotation, and offboarding context.

What this signals

Access-plane fragmentation: the more a programme splits access across gateways, PAM tools, cloud controls, and per-protocol clients, the harder it becomes to prove revocation and session integrity. That is especially relevant in hybrid estates where identity, protocol, and logging are no longer aligned in one control plane.

With only 20% of organisations having formal processes for offboarding and revoking API keys, the governance lesson is clear: access layers that stop at login are not enough for modern NHI programmes. Teams should test whether offboarding, session review, and evidence retention still hold when the resource moves from GCP-native access into mixed infrastructure.

The practical next step is to tighten control-plane boundaries around the resources you actually run. If the organisation cannot uniformly govern databases, servers, Kubernetes, and third-party access, then the access architecture is already signalling where the audit gap will appear next.

For practitioners

• Define the access boundary explicitly Document which resources are covered by your current gateway model and which still require separate control for databases, servers, Kubernetes, SSH, and RDP. If a platform cannot govern a resource type consistently, treat that as a design gap rather than an exception.
• Require hidden credentials for privileged paths For administrative access, prefer mediated access patterns where users never handle the underlying secret. This reduces credential reuse, simplifies revocation, and lowers the chance that a stale key survives beyond offboarding.
• Make session evidence part of approval criteria Do not count authentication as governance unless you can also review commands, queries, and resource actions after entry. Audit logs should be sufficient to reconstruct what happened during the session, not just who was allowed in.
• Test third-party and hybrid access flows separately Validate how contractors, vendors, and cross-cloud operators are granted, monitored, and removed. Hybrid estates usually expose the weak point first, especially when the access layer depends on extra components or cloud-specific setup.

Key takeaways

• The core issue is not whether a gateway can authenticate users, but whether it can govern access across the full resource estate.
• Visibility and post-login evidence matter as much as entry control, especially when secrets and sessions span multiple platforms.
• IAM teams should treat multi-cloud access architecture as a governance design choice, not a product comparison exercise.

Key terms

• Access-plane fragmentation: Access-plane fragmentation is the condition where different tools govern login, privilege, session monitoring, and revocation across separate systems. It creates uneven evidence, inconsistent offboarding, and gaps between what was authorised and what was actually controlled. In practice, the organisation cannot reliably prove access was fully removed or observed.
• Privileged access governance: Privileged access governance is the discipline of controlling high-risk access end to end, from entitlement to session evidence and revocation. It goes beyond authentication by hiding secrets, limiting scope, recording actions, and supporting lifecycle controls such as offboarding and recertification.
• Session evidence: Session evidence is the record of what an identity actually did after access was granted, including commands, queries, configuration changes, and resource actions. It is the proof layer that lets security and compliance teams reconstruct activity, investigate incidents, and validate that privilege did not exceed policy.
• Zero trust access model: A zero trust access model grants access only after identity, policy, and context checks, rather than assuming trust based on network location. For cloud access programmes, it should also limit standing privilege, reduce secret exposure, and preserve auditability after login.

Deepen your knowledge

Google Cloud IAP alternatives, privileged access boundaries, and session governance are core topics in our NHI Foundation Level course, the industry's only accredited NHI security programme. If you are comparing gateway-based access to broader control-plane models, it is worth exploring.

This post draws on content published by StrongDM: Access alternatives to Google Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP). Read the original.