Topic starter
11/06/2026 11:55 pm
TL;DR: User access reviews are a useful compliance starting point, but Zluri argues they cannot deliver continuous governance because access changes between review cycles, coverage often stays limited to a few apps, and manual review alone cannot sustain least privilege across modern environments. The real control problem is lifecycle and monitoring, not periodic certification.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Zluri: “You Just Implemented Your Access Reviews. What's Next?”.
Key questions
Q: What breaks when access reviews are the only IGA control?
A: They create a governance gap between review cycles.
Q: Why do user access reviews so often fail to enforce least privilege?
A: They fail when reviewers are asked to judge too many permissions with too little context.
Q: How should security teams reduce manual effort in access certification campaigns?
A: Security teams should automate reviewer routing, reminders, approval tracking, and removal handling so the certification process produces reliable evidence instead of spreadsheet churn.
Practitioner guidance
- Implement event-driven provisioning and deprovisioning Connect joiner, mover, and leaver events to automated access changes so role changes and terminations update entitlements without waiting for the next review cycle.
- Expand review coverage beyond audit-scope applications Bring SaaS, cloud services, and other business-critical apps into the certification programme so least privilege is not measured only in the systems auditors already inspect.
- Shift high-risk access to policy-driven governance Use RBAC and ABAC to reduce manual reviewer burden, then reserve periodic certification for privileged or exceptional entitlements that still need human oversight.
Bottom line: User access reviews are useful for certification, but they do not by themselves keep entitlements current across a changing environment.
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This topic was modified 4 days ago by NHI Mgmt Group
12/06/2026 8:50 am
Access reviews are a control checkpoint, not an identity governance operating model. The article is right to frame UAR as a starting point, because certification proves oversight but not continuity. A mature IGA programme has to connect approvals, provisioning, monitoring, and revocation into one lifecycle, otherwise the organisation is simply proving it can inspect drift after it has already occurred. The practitioner conclusion is that governance must be built around state change, not annual or quarterly assurance rituals.
A few things that frame the scale:
- Over 70% of organisations lack automated access risk analysis, user access reviews and provisioning and deprovisioning, according to Pathlock's 2025 Digital Transformation and Access Risk Report.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How should teams move from periodic access reviews to continuous governance?
A: Start by identifying the identity events that already occur in your environment, such as joiner, mover, leaver, entitlement change, and ownership change events. Then connect those signals to policy-driven workflows so routine decisions happen automatically and only risky exceptions reach human reviewers. The aim is fewer batch reviews and faster control action.
👉 Read our full editorial: User access reviews are only the start of effective IGA
This post was modified 4 days ago by NHI Mgmt Group