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12/06/2026 10:06 pm
TL;DR: Cloud-based IAM can tighten access, improve auditability, and support zero-trust enforcement, but the real value is in reducing lateral movement and over-privilege when users change roles, according to Axiad. The security gain depends on whether identity governance keeps pace with access drift across users, applications, and machines.
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.
Questions worth separating out
Q: What breaks when cloud IAM still leaves old access in place after role changes?
A: Privilege creep becomes structural.
Q: Why do cloud IAM controls matter even when MFA is in place?
A: MFA confirms the user or account at login, but it does not remove unnecessary permissions already attached to that identity.
Q: How do security teams know whether IAM automation is actually working?
A: Look for evidence that access is removed as reliably as it is created.
Practitioner guidance
- Map access removal to role change events Verify that joiner, mover, and leaver workflows revoke old permissions automatically when a person changes function, not just when they exit the organisation.
- Audit standing privilege before adding more conditional checks Review where users, service accounts, and machines hold access that does not expire on its own.
- Tie zero-trust decisions to authoritative identity sources Make sure policy decisions draw from current identity, device, and role data rather than stale group membership or manually maintained exceptions.
What's in the full article
Axiad's full blog post covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- How the cloud IAM workflow maps job functions to groups and roles in practice
- Which access control settings the vendor highlights for device status, time, and source IP
- The authentication features described for passwordless MFA and phishing-resistant authentication
- The product-oriented explanation of how the platform supports zero-trust enforcement
👉 Read Axiad's blog on cloud IAM benefits and zero-trust controls →
Cloud IAM and zero trust: where identity controls still fail?
Explore further
13/06/2026 12:39 am
Cloud IAM only reduces attack surface when identity lifecycle and authorization stay synchronized. The article correctly identifies role drift as a core risk, but that is the same failure pattern seen across NHI governance when entitlements outlive the business need that created them. The practical conclusion is that provisioning without equally strong removal logic creates persistent exposure.
A few things that frame the scale:
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- 91.6% of secrets remain valid five days after the targeted organisation is notified, showing a critical gap in remediation procedures.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who is accountable when cloud access is over-granted and not removed?
A: Accountability usually sits across IAM operations, application owners, and line-of-business managers, because each has part of the lifecycle. The programme fails when nobody owns the removal step. In mature governance, access approval and access removal are both explicitly assigned and reviewed.
👉 Read our full editorial: Cloud IAM exposes the identity control gaps attackers exploit
