Topic starter
09/07/2026 1:40 pm
TL;DR: IAM tools can authenticate users and grant access, but audits often require proof of approval, review, remediation, and removal, according to SecurEnds. The compliance gap is not broken access control, but missing governance evidence that turns valid access into unproven access.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by SecurEnds: “Why IAM Alone Is Not Enough for Compliance Audits”.
Key questions
Q: What breaks when IAM is used without IGA oversight?
A: IAM can provision and enforce access correctly while still leaving the enterprise unable to prove that access remains appropriate.
Q: Why do auditors care about governance evidence beyond access control?
A: Auditors are testing whether access was authorised for a valid business reason and whether it stayed aligned to policy.
Q: How do organisations know whether access reviews are working?
A: Access reviews are working when they lead to timely removals, reduced exception volume, and role definitions that stop accumulating unused rights.
Practitioner guidance
- Define access ownership for every high-risk entitlement Assign a business owner and a technical owner for sensitive applications, privileged roles, and regulated data access so review responsibility is never ambiguous.
- Run recurring access certification campaigns Schedule reviews for finance, healthcare, customer data, and administrative entitlements so reviewers can approve, reject, or exception-handle access with traceable evidence.
- Link joiner-mover-leaver events to access change workflows Trigger review or removal when users change roles, move departments, or leave so old access does not persist after the original justification ends.
Bottom line: IAM alone can enforce access, but it cannot prove that access was approved, reviewed, and removed when no longer needed.
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09/07/2026 1:44 pm
IAM compliance gaps are governance failures, not authentication failures. The article’s core point is that an identity programme can be technically effective and still fail audit scrutiny if it cannot prove approval, review, and removal. That distinction matters because compliance teams are judging control evidence over time, not just access at a point in time. The practitioner conclusion is simple: access control does not equal access accountability.
A few things that frame the scale:
- Nearly 60% of IT leaders cite restrictive cost and complexity as a weakness of legacy identity governance, according to the 2025 State of Identity Governance Report.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What is the difference between IAM and IGA when teams are accountable for compliance?
A: IAM is responsible for making access work securely and efficiently, while IGA is responsible for proving that access remains appropriate, reviewed, and compliant. In practice, IAM answers who can get in and how, and IGA answers whether that access should continue. Mature programs need both, because operational access control alone does not satisfy governance obligations.
👉 Read our full editorial: IAM compliance gaps show why governance must go beyond access