IAM & Access Management

Access accumulates and almost never gets removed on its own. Someone needs prod database access for one incident and keeps it for two years; a service gets an admin role because scoping it down "later" was never a priority. Every one of those grants is a standing liability whether or not it's ever misused, because it's one more credential an attacker can compromise and one more thing an auditor has to explain.

The fix isn't better memory, it's a system where access is granted through roles with a defined scope and a defined lifetime, reviewed on a cadence, and revoked by default when it's no longer actively used.

Access that nobody remembers granting is access nobody is defending.

1. Grant through roles, not individual permissions