Topic starter
12/06/2026 12:53 am
TL;DR: Forrester’s SaaS Security Posture Management Wave points to a widening gap between traditional IAM practices and the realities of SaaS admin sprawl, OAuth-connected apps, and misconfigured access artifacts, according to Zluri’s summary of the report. The core issue is not coverage alone, but whether identity governance can keep pace with SaaS configuration and privilege complexity.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Zluri: “Forrester’s Latest SaaS Security Posture Management Report Identifies Zluri as a Strong Performer Amongst Top Providers”.
Key questions
Q: Why do traditional IAM tools struggle with SaaS security posture management?
A: Traditional IAM tools focus on authentication and central entitlements, but SaaS risk lives in app-specific roles, delegated consents, and configuration settings.
Q: When does OAuth create more risk than it reduces in SaaS environments?
A: OAuth becomes high risk when scopes are broad, tokens are long-lived, and the organization cannot see how the credential is reused across connected apps.
Q: What are the signs that access reviews are no longer keeping up with SaaS sprawl?
A: Common signs include long review backlogs, repeated exceptions, unknown applications in use, and licence data that does not match actual business activity.
Practitioner guidance
- Map SaaS application ownership and admin scope Identify which teams own each SaaS application, who can change its configuration, and which administrators have persistent access paths that IAM does not directly govern.
- Review OAuth-connected application trust Inventory the SaaS apps connected by OAuth, API keys, and similar delegated access, then classify which connections are still necessary and which expand exposure without business need.
- Add SaaS configuration drift to access reviews Include application settings, admin hierarchies, and misconfiguration findings in access recertification so the review covers the state of the platform, not only the identity record.
Bottom line: Traditional IAM does not fully cover the security problems created by SaaS configuration drift, admin hierarchy, and delegated app access.
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This topic was modified 4 days ago by NHI Mgmt Group
12/06/2026 10:25 am
SaaS posture management exposes an IAM coverage gap, not an IAM failure. IAM still matters for identity proofing, provisioning, and access decisions, but it does not fully govern the application-side configuration and delegated access state that SaaS now exposes. The governance gap appears when access is technically valid but operationally unsafe inside the SaaS layer. Practitioners should treat that boundary as a distinct control domain.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 1 in 3 organisations encountered suspicious AI agent activity in 2025, and 99.4% experienced a SaaS or AI ecosystem incident.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How should security teams implement identity governance in SaaS-heavy environments?
A: Start with a complete inventory of users, service accounts, integrations, and privileged entitlements across all major applications. Then enforce ownership, periodic review, and automatic deprovisioning when accounts become unused or unassigned. The goal is to make access changes traceable and reversible before stale privileges become a security issue.
👉 Read our full editorial: SaaS security posture management exposes the limits of IAM
This post was modified 4 days ago by NHI Mgmt Group