Why More IGA Isn’t the Answer to Identity Risk

Recent insider breaches have shown a familiar pattern as insiders or former employees retained access to sensitive systems long after they should have been removed. Each time this happens, the industry’s reflex is the same, and that is to tighten or implement Identity Governance & Administration (IGA).

But the problem is that IGA was built for compliance, not for resilience. It provisions and deprovisions accounts, it runs periodic certifications, and it satisfies auditors, but it assumes that processes always work. HR updates can be delayed, connectors can fail, and static entitlements can linger unnoticed, and when they do, the risk window opens wide.

This is why simply recommending more IGA may not only be insufficient but may also be the wrong recommendation. Governance alone cannot anticipate failure, and in cybersecurity, failure is inevitable.

The path forward is ephemeral and risk-aware identity access:

• Just-In-Time Access – privileges created when needed, removed automatically when they expire.
• Continuous Risk Checks – every session re-evaluated in real time, not just once at login.
• Separation of Authentication and Authorization – eliminating the single point of failure that comes when both are tied to one platform.

At SecureAuth, this philosophy underpins our approach. We design identity not just to govern but also to adapt. We just-in-time authorize access with contextual data, verify continuously against context and behavior, and we decouple authentication from authorization to prevent systemic compromise.

The lesson from recent breaches is clear: identity governance satisfies auditors, but resilience requires dynamic and adaptive control. It is time to evolve from compliance-driven IAM to systems that mitigate risk by design.

The question is whether we keep governing identities for compliance or finally start adapting them for resilience.