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22/06/2026 10:24 am
TL;DR: Strong IAM programmes still hinge on MFA, passwordless, SSO, privileged account management, provisioning, RBAC, and self-service access requests, according to Axiad. The deeper lesson is that controls only reduce risk when they also reduce standing privilege, manual exception handling, and fragmented identity sprawl.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Axiad: 9 Features of a Great Identity and Access Management System
By the numbers:
- 97% of NHIs carry excessive privileges, increasing unauthorised access and broadening the attack surface.
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts.
- 79% of organisations have experienced secrets leaks, with 77% of these incidents resulting in tangible damage.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should organisations reduce identity attack surface without creating more admin overhead?
A: Focus first on removing unnecessary standing access.
Q: Why do strong authentication controls still fail when access governance is weak?
A: Strong authentication proves who entered, but it does not prove that the identity should still have broad access once inside.
Q: What should security teams look for when RBAC is not reducing risk?
A: Look for role inflation, overlapping entitlements, and roles built around exceptions instead of stable business functions.
Practitioner guidance
- Audit privileged account sprawl Inventory every elevated account, map its business owner, and remove day-to-day use from accounts that only need occasional escalation.
- Tighten lifecycle controls around provisioning and deprovisioning Automate joiner, mover, and leaver workflows so access changes happen with the business event, not after a manual queue clears.
- Reduce reliance on reusable credentials Move high-risk users and administrators toward passwordless or phishing-resistant MFA, and ensure fallback paths are equally governed.
What's in the full article
Axiad's full blog covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- Feature-by-feature explanation of each IAM capability and how the vendor positions it for different deployment scenarios
- Product-oriented discussion of authentication, provisioning, and access control functions in the Axiad platform
- Implementation-facing examples of how the company frames MFA, passwordless, SSO, RBAC, and self-service access requests
- The vendor's own call to action and product overview for teams evaluating its authentication stack
👉 Read Axiad's blog on nine IAM capabilities that reduce identity attack surface →
IAM capabilities that reduce identity attack surface: what matters most?
Explore further
22/06/2026 11:18 am
Identity control quality is now determined by how well programmes suppress standing access, not by how many authentication features they offer. MFA, passwordless, SSO, and self-service request flows all matter, but they do not offset excessive privilege or weak offboarding. The underlying governance test is whether identity access can be limited to the minimum useful window and removed without delay. Practitioner conclusion: treat access persistence as the primary risk variable, not feature count.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 97% of NHIs carry excessive privileges, increasing unauthorised access and broadening the attack surface, according to Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- Only 20% have formal processes for offboarding and revoking API keys, and even fewer have procedures for rotating them.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How do teams know whether privileged access management is actually working?
A: A working privileged access programme produces fewer permanent elevated accounts, clearer ownership, and better monitoring of when high-risk access is used. If administrators still use powerful accounts for routine work, PAM is not constraining the real risk. The test is whether elevated access is rare, justified, and easy to revoke.
👉 Read our full editorial: Nine IAM capabilities that reduce identity attack surface
