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11/06/2026 11:39 pm
TL;DR: User lifecycle management platforms can reduce access sprawl, improve offboarding, and strengthen auditability, but the real control point is whether provisioning, monitoring, compliance checks, MFA, and RBAC are connected end to end, according to Zluri. Lifecycle governance only works when identity changes are treated as security events, not admin tasks.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Zluri: Lifecycle Management 5 Best Practices for Mitigating IT Risks with a ULM Platform
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.
- 71% of NHIs are not rotated within recommended time frames, increasing the risk of compromise over time.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should teams prevent access from outliving the user lifecycle?
A: By tying joiner, mover, and leaver events to every place access can persist, including SSO, app entitlements, device sessions, and licenses.
Q: Why do lifecycle gaps create so much identity risk?
A: Because identity risk often comes from access that remains valid after the business reason for it has ended.
Q: How can organisations tell whether RBAC is actually reducing risk?
A: By checking whether roles are narrow enough to match real duties and whether exceptions, temporary grants, and inherited permissions are being reviewed.
Practitioner guidance
- Tighten offboarding to remove access across all layers Link HR exit events to app deprovisioning, SSO removal, and license revocation so no system retains usable access after the lifecycle ends.
- Measure entitlement drift after role changes Check whether movers inherit old permissions when a job function changes, then compare assigned access with actual app usage and approval records.
- Make audit trails operationally useful Require logs that show who approved access, when it changed, which system enforced it, and whether revocation completed successfully.
What's in the full article
Zluri's full article covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- Workflow examples for provisioning and deprovisioning user accounts across multiple applications and systems.
- Step-by-step offboarding actions including data backup, license revocation, and SSO removal.
- Compliance-oriented monitoring and auditing features, including how Zluri presents activity reports and audit trails.
- Role-based access control examples showing how permissions can be assigned and monitored by department.
👉 Read Zluri's lifecycle management guide for IT risk mitigation with a ULM platform →
User lifecycle management: what IAM teams need to tighten first?
Explore further
12/06/2026 8:26 am
Lifecycle control has become the real boundary of IT risk. The article is framed as a ULM best-practice guide, but the governance lesson is broader: organisations do not fail because they lack identity processes, they fail because those processes do not keep pace with access change. When provisioning, revocation, monitoring, and role governance are disconnected, lifecycle becomes the place where risk accumulates. Practitioners should treat lifecycle execution as a security control surface, not an admin workflow.
A few things that frame the scale:
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, according to Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- 71% of NHIs are not rotated within recommended time frames, increasing the risk of compromise over time.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who should own offboarding when multiple systems are involved?
A: Identity, HR, application owners, and security all have a share, but one team must be accountable for completion. If no owner can prove that access was removed across SSO, app licenses, and entitlements, offboarding is incomplete and the residual risk remains live.
👉 Read our full editorial: User lifecycle management is now an IT risk control problem
