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Topic starter
24/06/2026 7:01 pm
TL;DR: Many organisations still benchmark without a clear identity governance baseline, according to Netwrix, and the vendor’s page is a landing experience around a security maturity assessment, but the only substantive signal is that many organisations still benchmark without a clear identity governance baseline. For IAM teams, the gap is not assessment volume, but whether the programme can translate scoring into control ownership and remediation.
NHIMG editorial — here’s why we think this discussion matters
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams use a maturity assessment without mistaking it for assurance?
A: Use maturity scoring to identify likely gaps, then validate the result against evidence from access reviews, credential rotation, and offboarding records.
Q: Why do identity maturity benchmarks often miss real risk?
A: They often measure whether a programme exists, not whether it is enforced across the identities that matter most.
Practitioner guidance
- Map assessment questions to specific identity controls Require every maturity question to tie back to a named control area such as access review, credential rotation, offboarding, or privileged access governance.
- Include non-human identities in the benchmark scope Add service accounts, API keys, certificates, and workload credentials to the assessment baseline so the result reflects the full identity attack surface.
- Convert scores into dated remediation actions For each weak area, assign a control owner, a completion date, and a verification method.
What to expect at the briefing
Netwrix's full article covers the assessment entry point and product context that this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- The original assessment workflow and how the benchmark is presented to readers.
- The surrounding product and resource navigation that frames the maturity check.
- The exact on-demand webinar context and related resource links on the source page.
- The vendor's site layout and conversion flow for users exploring related identity management content.
👉 Read Netwrix's security maturity assessment page →
Security maturity benchmarking: what are IAM teams actually measuring?
Explore further
25/06/2026 4:06 am
Security maturity is only useful when it is control-specific. A benchmark that does not distinguish between policy presence and operational enforcement can make weak identity governance look acceptable. For IAM, PAM, and NHI programmes, the real value lies in tracing maturity to evidence of visibility, privilege reduction, and offboarding discipline.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 97% of NHIs carry excessive privileges, increasing unauthorised access and broadening the attack surface, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, which explains why benchmark scores often overstate real identity control maturity.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How do organisations know whether an identity benchmark is actually working?
A: It is working only if the score leads to fewer unmanaged accounts, better review completion, faster remediation, and clearer ownership. The practical test is whether the assessment changes control behaviour. If it does not affect decisions, timelines, or evidence quality, it is just reporting.
👉 Read our full editorial: Security maturity benchmarks show the limits of generic assessment
