IAM Hygiene and Data Management

In today’s digital landscape, where cyberthreats are increasingly sophisticated and pervasive, maintaining robust IAM hygiene is more critical than ever — as IAM artifacts left unmanaged, or not properly managed, can easily create or magnify security risks. Ineffective, incomplete or poorly managed IAM processes can compromise operational integrity and erode data quality. 

The good news is that many breaches are avoidable by implementing good IAM hygiene practices.

Considerations that influence hygiene include:

• Poor IAM data quality
• IAM misconfigurations
• Ineffective IAM processes

As shown in Figure 1, these three interrelated problems, when compounded, magnify the risk and need to be addressed simultaneously. Two of these problems, bad identity data quality and ineffective IAM processes, tend to be intertwined and compound each other — ineffective processes often cause problems with IAM data quality. Therefore, they need to be addressed together to provide better security outcomes.

• Password hygiene issues - Passwords that are stored in plaintext format, have not been changed for longer than allowed by regulations and are not subject to password rules. 
  How to address: 
  • Migrate to cryptographically secure password stores
  • Enforce password policies with directory services
  • Use external password management tools to manage passwords for applications with their own account repositories
     
• Dormant accounts - Accounts that have not been used for a long time, and their purpose may have ended.
  How to address: 
  • Implement “use-it-or-lose-it” mechanism
  • Implement an inactivity threshold with advance warnings and quarantine period
  • Use multiple mechanisms to check for account inactivity, including time-based access
     
• Rogue accounts - Accounts created outside of official channels (not using official IAM processes and system flows). 
  How to address:
  • Support ILM with reconciliation processes.
  • Investigate discovered rogue accounts.
     
• Shadow administrator accounts - Accounts that are not members of privileged groups but have entitlements that allow them to make changes to directory entries and potentially give themselves, or others, admin privileges.
  How to address:
  • Review effective privileged rights using visibility tools.
     
• Orphan accounts - Accounts without a relationship or ownership defined.
  How to address:
  • Identify and monitor the connections between accounts and change management databases
  • Investigate lineage for machine accounts and assign ownership to groups of people, rather than individuals.
  • Use relationship data to assign ownership at account inception. 
     
• Empty or unused groups or roles - Groups and roles that have no members, are not used for just-in-time elevation, or groups that exist but are not used anywhere.
  How to address: 
  • Clean up as many unused or empty groups or roles as possible.
  • Be careful to safeguard any groups specifically used for just-in-time (JIT) access
     
• Unapproved high-risk access - Assignment of high-risk or sensitive groups, roles or other types of entitlements to users, that have not recently (or ever) been approved.
  How to address: 
  • Identify and mark entitlements that bear high-risk or sensitive data access.
  • Check for recent access certification.
  • Use “last accessed” time stamps, if available, to assist during certification.
  • Remove unneeded access. Review and approve access if needed.
     
• Entitlements with no ownership or risk scores - Entitlements without ownership are considered “orphan entitlements."
  How to address:
  • Identify entitlements without ownership and try to assign ownership
  • Assign a risk score to entitlements that do not have them

Need more guidance on IAM hygiene and data management? We're discussing the latest insights on emerging IAM topics at Gartner Identity & Access Management Summit 2025, happening December 8 – 10, in Grapevine, TX.