The business owner, the IAM or IGA team, and the application security team should share responsibility, but one team must be accountable for the decision to approve and the decision to revoke. If ownership is unclear, the integration should not remain active because no one can defend its continued access.
Why This Matters for Security Teams
Third-party apps connected to collaboration platforms are not just convenience features. They are delegated access paths into chat, files, calendars, and sometimes sensitive workflow data. That makes them a non-human identity governance problem, not a simple SaaS administration task. When ownership is split or unclear, approvals happen once and revocation happens never, which is how stale integrations accumulate.
The risk is amplified because collaboration platforms are often trusted by default inside the business. A malicious or over-permissioned app can read messages, exfiltrate attachments, or chain access into other systems without looking unusual at the platform layer. NHIMG research highlights the visibility gap clearly: The State of Non-Human Identity Security reports that 85% of organisations lack full visibility into third-party vendors connected via OAuth apps. That gap makes ownership decisions a control, not an administrative preference.
Security teams should treat these integrations as governed identities with lifecycle obligations, not one-time installs. The practical question is not who clicks approve, but who can defend continued access when the business use case changes. In practice, many security teams encounter risky app sprawl only after a platform audit, breach review, or user complaint exposes the problem.
How It Works in Practice
Ownership should be shared, but accountability must be explicit. The business owner defines the need, the IAM or IGA team governs identity lifecycle and access review, and the application security team evaluates technical risk, permissions, and vendor posture. That division works only when one named owner is responsible for the approve and revoke decision. Without that, no one feels empowered to remove an app that has outlived its business purpose.
A practical operating model usually starts with inventory. Use collaboration platform admin logs, consent grants, and OAuth app catalogs to identify what is connected. Then classify each app by business function, data scope, and privilege level. The decision workflow should include:
- Business justification with an explicit owner and expiration date
- Permission review against the minimum required scopes
- Security review for vendor trust, data handling, and authentication model
- Scheduled recertification and automatic revocation if no owner confirms need
This aligns with the lifecycle emphasis in NHIMG’s Ultimate Guide to NHIs — Lifecycle Processes for Managing NHIs and with the governance expectations reflected in the OWASP Non-Human Identity Top 10. Current guidance suggests these integrations should be handled like privileged access, because the app is acting on behalf of the organization, not merely interfacing with it.
For control design, the accountable owner should be the person or function that can answer three questions: why the app exists, what data it can reach, and when it must be removed. These controls tend to break down in federated collaboration environments where local teams can grant consent faster than central governance can review it.
Common Variations and Edge Cases
Tighter approval and revocation controls often increase operational overhead, requiring organisations to balance speed for the business against loss of visibility and auditability. That tradeoff becomes more pronounced when collaboration platforms allow user consent, marketplace installs, or automated provisioning from low-code tools.
There is no universal standard for this yet, but current guidance suggests three common edge cases need special handling. First, apps installed by end users should still have a named business owner, even if IT did not deploy them. Second, vendor-managed integrations should not be exempt just because the vendor is trusted. Third, high-risk scopes, such as message read access or file download permissions, should trigger stronger review than simple notification bots.
NHIMG analysis of breach patterns in 52 NHI Breaches Analysis shows how quickly delegated access can become an incident path when permissions are broader than the business need. For policy teams, the safest rule is simple: if no accountable owner can justify the integration today, the app should be disabled until someone can. That principle also maps cleanly to NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 by tying governance to identify, protect, and respond outcomes rather than to platform convenience alone.
In practice, the hardest cases are legacy integrations embedded in business workflows, because removing them can disrupt operations while leaving them active preserves hidden access risk.
Standards & Framework Alignment
This section maps relevant standards and security frameworks to the operational risks and controls described in this guidance.
OWASP Non-Human Identity Top 10 address the attack and risk surface, while NIST CSF 2.0 and NIST CSF 2.0 set the governance and control requirements practitioners need to meet.
| Framework | Control / Reference | Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| OWASP Non-Human Identity Top 10 | NHI-01 | Third-party apps are NHIs and need inventory, ownership, and lifecycle control. |
| NIST CSF 2.0 | PR.AA-01 | Identity governance for delegated app access maps to access authorization outcomes. |
| NIST CSF 2.0 | GV.OV-01 | Governance oversight is needed to ensure someone can approve and revoke access. |
Require approved business justification and periodic recertification before any collaboration app keeps access.
Related resources from NHI Mgmt Group
Deepen Your Knowledge
Reviewed and updated by the NHIMG editorial team on June 12, 2026.
NHI Mgmt Group — the #1 independent authority on Non-Human Identity, IAM, and Agentic AI security. nhimg.org
