Topic starter
22/01/2026 4:46 pm
TL;DR: Enterprises are drowning in human and non-human identities, and Omada Identity argues that User Access Management only scales when IGA continuously certifies, constrains, and proves access across them. The underlying assumption that access can be managed with periodic checks is breaking under identity sprawl, orphaned entitlements, and AI-agent growth.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Omada Identity: “Why IGA Is Central to Effective User Access Management in 2026”.
Key questions
Q: What breaks when IGA is treated as a periodic review exercise instead of continuous governance?
A: Access drift outpaces the review cycle.
Q: Why do overprivileged service accounts create such persistent cloud risk?
A: Overprivileged service accounts create persistent risk because they combine standing access, weak ownership, and broad lateral movement potential.
Q: How can organisations govern non-human identities more effectively?
A: Organisations should treat every non-human identity as an owned asset with a purpose, expiration, and review cycle.
Practitioner guidance
- Define ownership for every non-human identity Assign a named business and technical owner to each service account, API credential or bot so entitlement decisions are accountable throughout its lifecycle.
- Tie access reviews to lifecycle events Trigger certification when an identity is created, repurposed, expanded or offboarded, instead of relying only on quarterly or annual review cycles.
- Separate governance from enforcement Use IGA to validate access intent, IAM to enforce authentication and provisioning, and PAM to contain the highest-risk entitlements.
Bottom line: User access management now spans human and non-human identities, so governance has to follow the full lifecycle rather than only the login event.
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This topic was modified 24 hours ago by NHI Mgmt Group
11/10/2026 3:50 am
IGA is now the control plane that makes access defensible, not merely functional. IAM can provision, PAM can contain and policy engines can standardise decisions, but only IGA can continuously prove that access is still justified. As identities multiply across employees and non-human actors, the governance layer becomes the only place where lifecycle, ownership and certification converge. Practitioners should treat IGA as the proof layer for user access management, not an optional reporting add-on.
A few things that frame the scale:
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What is the difference between IAM and IGA in enterprise identity management?
A: IAM focuses on access delivery. It verifies identity, grants permissions, supports SSO, and automates onboarding and offboarding. IGA focuses on governance. It evaluates whether access should remain, enforces policy, runs access reviews, and creates audit evidence. Together, they combine operational efficiency with control, compliance, and accountability.
👉 Read our full editorial: IGA is central to user access management in 2026