🧠 AuditSec Intel 1042 – “The IAM Drift Crisis: How Role Explosion, Group Sprawl & Identity Creep Undermined Zero Trust in 2025”
🔍 Introduction — When Identity Became the New Shadow IT
In 2025, enterprises implemented IAM.
But they lost control of identity governance.
CISORadar’s Identity Drift & Access Hygiene Study 2025 revealed:
🔥 52% of employees had more privileges at the time of exit than at the time of joining.
🔥 41% of access rights were accumulated, not assigned — identity creep.
🔥 33% of IAM roles became overly complex, unreviewed, or unused.
🔥 27% of SaaS permissions drifted outside IT visibility.
Identity didn’t grow linearly.
Identity drifted, mutated, and multiplied.
CISORadar calls this: The IAM Drift Crisis.
⚠️ 2025 Case Files — IAM Drift in Real Breaches
| Sector | Drift Type | Root Cause | Breach Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fintech | Role Explosion | 284 IAM roles with redundant privileges | Fraud detection bypass |
| Telecom | Group Sprawl | Nested AD groups with invisible admins | Domain escalation |
| SaaS | Shadow Permissions | OAuth drift after integrations | Tenant-wide takeover |
| Healthcare | Identity Creep | Users keeping old role access | PHI modification |
| Retail | Over-Permissioned Vendors | Third-party never deprovisioned | API data leak |
CISORadar Insight:
“Identity doesn’t become dangerous all at once.
It becomes dangerous one unchecked permission at a time.”
🧩 Ignored Control: ISO 27001 A.5.18 / NIST AC-2, AC-3 — Access Control Lifecycle Management
| Control Area | Objective | Common Failure |
|---|---|---|
| Role Review | Ensure roles match actual job needs | Roles copied, never reviewed |
| Group Hygiene | Keep AD / cloud groups minimal | 300+ groups no one owns |
| Privilege Granting | Enforce least privilege | Blanket admin permissions |
| Role Lifecycle | Retire old or unused roles | Roles exist for 8–10 years |
| SaaS Role Governance | Control SaaS privileges | Admin-by-default integrations |
| Periodic Reviews | Validate access quarterly | Reviews skipped or superficial |
💬 CISORadar Observation:
“Zero Trust fails not because trust is misplaced —
but because access is never removed.”
🧠 CISORadar Control Test of the Week
Control Reference: ISO 27001 A.5.18 / NIST AC-2, AC-3**
Objective: Detect identity creep, role explosion, privilege sprawl, and invisible permissions.
🔍 Test Steps
1️⃣ Export IAM roles + privileges from AD, AWS, Azure, GCP, SaaS.
2️⃣ Identify redundant, unused, or risky roles.
3️⃣ Detect “copy-paste roles” that were never cleaned.
4️⃣ Locate shadow permissions via OAuth & API integrations.
5️⃣ Identify privilege escalation paths (role chaining, inheritance).
6️⃣ Detect users with privileges beyond current job responsibilities.
7️⃣ Review vendor access & third-party permissions.
8️⃣ Generate CISORadar Identity Drift Score (IDS).
🔎 Expected Outcomes
✅ Access rights aligned to actual job roles
✅ Zero unused or abandoned IAM roles
✅ No identity creep
✅ SaaS permissions controlled & monitored
✅ Privilege escalation paths eliminated
✅ Identity architecture aligned to Zero Trust
Tools Suggested:
SailPoint | CyberArk | Azure PIM | AWS IAM Analyzer | Okta Access Insights | CISORadar “Identity Drift Matrix”
🧨 Real Case: The 4-Year Identity Creep Breach
A senior analyst changed roles three times.
Each time, new privileges were added — and old ones were never removed.
Eventually, the analyst’s account had:
- Finance access
- Customer data access
- Admin access to CRM
- Write access to cloud functions
Attackers phished the analyst → inherited access → pivoted across systems.
Damage: ₹1,860 Crore.
Lesson:
“Identity doesn’t need to be malicious to be dangerous.
It just needs to be unmanaged.”
🚀 CISORadar Impact Model – Identity Drift Score (IDS)
| Metric | Before CISORadar | After CISORadar |
|---|---|---|
| Excess Privileges | 138 | 2 |
| Unused IAM Roles | 78 | 1 |
| SaaS Shadow Permissions | 41 | 0 |
| Identity Creep | High | Zero |
| Privilege Escalation Paths | Multiple | None |
🧭 Leadership Takeaway
“Identity governance is not an annual review —
It is a continuous audit of every identity, every permission, every day.”
Boards must demand:
👉 Identity Drift dashboards
👉 Role & group hygiene scoring
👉 SaaS permission visibility
👉 Vendor access governance
👉 Privilege escalation path mapping
CISORadar transforms identity chaos into Zero-Risk Access Architecture.
📩 Download
Identity Governance Audit Checklist + IDS Scorecard (ISO 27001 A.5.18 / NIST AC-2, AC-3)
Available exclusively inside the CISORadar Cyber Authority Community.
🔗 Join Now → CISORadar Cyber Authority Community
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#AuditSecIntel #IAMSecurity #IdentityGovernance #AccessControl #ZeroTrust #IdentityDrift #ISO27001 #NISTAC2 #CISORadar #DigitalTrust #PrivilegeManagement
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