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08/06/2026 4:00 pm
TL;DR: Cloud-based IAM can tighten access control, improve auditability, automate role-based provisioning, and support zero-trust enforcement, according to Axiad’s analysis. The governance gap remains in how consistently organisations remove excess access, verify identity context, and manage non-human and human identities across changing roles.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Axiad: 5 ways companies benefit from cloud-based identity and access management solutions
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.
- 80% of identity breaches involved compromised non-human identities such as service accounts and API keys.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams implement cloud IAM without creating new privilege sprawl?
A: Security teams should link cloud IAM provisioning to role definitions, offboarding workflows, and recurring entitlement reviews.
Q: Why do cloud IAM controls matter for zero-trust programmes?
A: Cloud IAM matters because zero trust depends on continuous verification of identity, context, and entitlement, not on a single login event.
Q: What breaks when access reviews do not keep pace with role changes?
A: When reviews lag behind role changes, stale permissions survive longer than the job that justified them.
Practitioner guidance
- Map cloud IAM to lifecycle offboarding Tie role changes, departures, and access reviews to automatic entitlement removal so permissions do not persist after the business need ends.
- Enforce conditional access on high-risk resources Require device state, time, and network context for sensitive applications and verify that policy enforcement blocks access rather than only recording it.
- Separate audit evidence from access approval Maintain complete audit trails for every privileged request and entitlement change, then compare those logs with periodic access recertification to identify stale rights that approvals missed.
What's in the full article
Axiad's full blog post covers the practical details this analysis intentionally leaves at the governance level:
- How the article frames role mapping, access control, and MFA within a cloud IAM operating model
- The specific benefits Axiad lists for audit trails, zero trust, and automated access workflows
- The authentication features described for passwordless MFA and phishing-resistant access
- The article's own examples of policy enforcement across users and resources
👉 Read Axiad's article on cloud-based IAM benefits and zero-trust access →
Cloud IAM and zero trust: what IAM teams still need to fix?
Explore further
08/06/2026 5:22 pm
Cloud IAM is only as strong as the lifecycle discipline behind it. The article correctly emphasises role-based automation and auditability, but those controls fail when identities retain access after the business need has changed. In practice, cloud IAM reduces friction while privilege creep remains the underlying exposure. Practitioners should treat lifecycle governance as the real control surface, not just policy enforcement.
A few things that frame the scale:
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, according to Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- 97% of NHIs carry excessive privileges, increasing unauthorised access and broadening the attack surface.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How do teams know if their cloud IAM programme is actually reducing risk?
A: Teams know it is working when entitlement changes are traceable, stale access is removed quickly, privileged accounts are reviewed on schedule, and conditional policies consistently block risky requests. If audit logs show repeated exceptions or dormant access remains active, the programme is documenting risk rather than reducing it.
👉 Read our full editorial: Cloud IAM reduces identity attack surface but leaves governance gaps
