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11/06/2026 10:56 pm
TL;DR: Identity and access management metrics help teams measure orphaned accounts, authentication success, authorization failures, onboarding and offboarding speed, audit compliance, user satisfaction, and security incident rates, according to Zluri. The real value is not reporting volume, but proving that access decisions, lifecycle controls, and remediation loops are actually reducing risk.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Zluri: Access Management Top 8 Identity and Access Management Metrics
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.
- 91.6% of secrets remain valid five days after the targeted organisation is notified, showing a critical gap in remediation procedures.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should teams use IAM metrics to improve identity governance?
A: Teams should use IAM metrics to show whether identity controls are actually reducing exposure, not just recording activity.
Q: Why do orphaned accounts create more risk than simple audit noise?
A: Orphaned accounts matter because they preserve access after the business reason for that access has ended.
Q: How do you know if your deprovisioning process is working?
A: A working deprovisioning process removes access quickly, consistently, and across connected systems after a mover or leaver event.
Practitioner guidance
- Tie metrics to lifecycle events Map onboarding, mover, and leaver events to measurable access outcomes so every identity change has a corresponding control signal.
- Track residual access after departure Measure how long user, group, and app entitlements remain active after HR separation or role change, then investigate the slowest removals.
- Review orphaned accounts by owner Require every inactive, never-used, or uncorrelated account to have an accountable owner and a documented remediation path.
What's in the full article
Zluri's full article covers the practical metric breakdown this post intentionally leaves at the governance level:
- Step-by-step formulas for calculating account onboarding, offboarding, and authorization failure metrics
- Detailed examples for interpreting orphaned account categories such as dormant, never-used, and uncorrelated accounts
- Operational guidance on using password reset volume, audit compliance, and user satisfaction as programme signals
- Examples of how to frame IAM metrics for continuous improvement and executive reporting
👉 Read Zluri's article on the top IAM metrics for access management →
IAM metrics and identity risk: what teams should measure now?
Explore further
12/06/2026 7:22 am
IAM metrics fail when they measure activity instead of exposure. Counting logins, approvals, or satisfaction scores does not tell you whether identities are safer. The meaningful question is whether those metrics detect orphaned access, role drift, and delayed revocation before they become exploit paths. Practitioners should treat metrics as control evidence, not dashboard decoration.
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: What should identity teams do when authorization failures keep rising?
A: Rising authorization failures usually mean the role model is too blunt, the request process is too slow, or users are being pushed to request access outside their normal scope. Teams should review the denied requests by application, role, and business unit, then adjust entitlements or approval paths so the access model matches how work is actually performed.
👉 Read our full editorial: Identity and access management metrics are only useful when tied to risk
