IT compliance management and access reviews: where teams still slip

TL;DR: IT compliance management depends on knowing who and what can access systems, continuously reviewing that access, and remediating unnecessary entitlements, according to Zluri’s guide on compliance management. The core issue is not policy volume but enforceable visibility, because compliance breaks when access review, revocation, and reporting are treated as separate tasks.

NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Zluri: Access Management IT Compliance Management: An All-Inclusive Guide

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 manage access compliance across human and non-human identities?

A: They should use one governance model for both, but tailor the review method to the identity type.

Q: Why does access visibility matter so much in compliance programmes?

A: Because you cannot prove or improve what you cannot see.

Q: What do security teams get wrong about compliance reporting?

A: They often treat reporting as the end state instead of evidence of control.

Practitioner guidance

• Inventory all active access paths Build a complete map of users, service accounts, API keys, tokens, and app-to-app permissions before starting any compliance review.
• Separate remediation from reporting workflows Assign one workflow to close access gaps and another to document findings, owners, and closure evidence.
• Apply recurring recertification to stale entitlements Review privileged and business-critical access on a fixed cadence, then revoke anything that no longer matches current role, system ownership, or business need.

What's in the full article

Zluri's full guide covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:

• Step-by-step compliance workflow guidance for assessing, organising, remediating, and reporting IT controls.
• Examples of how access review platforms reduce manual effort while preserving audit-readiness.
• Practical advice on centralising compliance tasks and monitoring access status in real time.
• The article's own framing of how Zluri positions access control within IT compliance operations.

👉 Read Zluri's guide to IT compliance management and access control →

IT compliance management and access reviews: where teams still slip?

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