EverydayIdentity

Startup / Small — Post S2 (IGA) Focus: Building lightweight governance habits—reviews, documentation, and accountability—without enterprise IGA tools. Previous: Post S1 covered IAM setup (MFA, JML, SSO, and offboarding). TL;DR Startups don’t need full-blown IGA systems to practice governance. You just need a repeatable rhythm—review who has access, record it, and act on changes. With nothing more than spreadsheets, automation tools, and discipline, you can meet audit, investor, or SOC 2 expectations while staying lightweight and affordable....

Startup / Small — Post S1 (IAM) Focus: Building a secure identity foundation with no-cost or low-cost tools that get you to MFA, SSO, clean offboarding, and simple automation without breaking the bank. Next: Post S2 covers lightweight governance (IGA) with the same pragmatic mindset. TL;DR You don’t need a six-figure budget to build a strong identity backbone. You need a few free or affordable tools, a little discipline, and a simple offboarding workflow that always works....

Series format: Three levels × two posts each. Post 1 (per level) = IAM — access, SSO, MFA/passkeys, device/risk checks, lifecycle (JML), SCIM, and PIM/JIT. Post 2 (per level) = IGA — access reviews/certifications, SoD, policy, audit evidence, and continuous assurance. Why this series—and why now Identity work breaks when teams buy governance before they stabilize access, or when they over-index on a single vendor instead of designing for outcomes and clean handoffs....

TL;DR Annual access reviews alone won’t keep you safe. Real control requires a yin–yang operating model presented in the order you actually work: Yin (Secure AI-Assisted): risk-aware triage, context synthesis, toxic-combination detection, usage-based revocation suggestions, and policy-drift alerts—with human oversight for anything high-impact. Yang (Manual, Human-Led): clear ownership, accountable attestations by managers and app owners, strong evidence trails, and auditable decisions. Design your program around continuous and event-driven recertification—small, frequent, targeted reviews triggered by real changes—not a once-a-year scramble....

TL;DR AI is chewing through the repetitive, entry-level work that used to give newcomers their start in Identity & Access Management (IAM)—account audits, basic access reviews, routine onboarding/offboarding “click-ops,” and boilerplate policy writing. That means mentorship isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s the on-ramp. This post lays out (1) why the shift is happening, (2) what effective IAM mentorship looks like, (3) a practical 12-week plan any team can run, (4) how to blend AI as a co-mentor without outsourcing judgment, and (5) a vetted directory of communities and mentorship programs to join right now....

Tag: EverydayIdentity Editor’s Note (September 2025): This guide is aligned to the latest NIST publications issued last month, including SP 800-53 Release 5.2.0 (with new software-update/patch and cyber-resiliency emphasis) and SP 800-63 Revision 4 (updated Digital Identity Guidelines). We also reference the SP 1800-35 Zero Trust practice guide finalized this summer to ground CIEM in current best practice. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0} TL;DR Multi-cloud is powerful—and dangerously permissive by default. Over time, identities (humans and workloads) accumulate access they no longer need....

TL;DR You don’t need a twelve-month program to stop the most common identity breaches. In 30 days, you can close the biggest gaps: Purge orphaned accounts Process leavers the same day Rotate & vault NHI (non-human identity) passwords/keys Enforce MFA everywhere; phishing-resistant for admins Disable legacy/basic auth + app passwords Kill standing admin; adopt least privilege + JIT elevation Put critical apps behind SSO; disable local logins Run a high-risk access review sprint Establish a Conditional Access baseline (device/risk/location) Turn on identity logging & alerts; harden break-glass Below is a day-by-day plan with owners, acceptance criteria, checkpoints, and metrics....

Introduction: The End of the Password Era Imagine this: an employee’s corporate laptop is stolen from a café. Instead of panicking about whether the thief will guess the password, IT breathes easy—because the device uses passwordless authentication tied to the user’s biometric and hardware token. The attacker has nothing to exploit. This isn’t a futuristic scenario. Enterprises are already shifting toward passwordless authentication, not just for convenience but to protect against the relentless tide of credential theft....

Introduction: Why 2025 Is a Turning Point Digital onboarding has always been a balancing act: verify people quickly, securely, and seamlessly—without driving them away. In 2025, the balance is shifting once again. New regulations, emerging biometric technologies, AI-powered fraud, and rising consumer expectations are rewriting the rulebook on how organizations prove who someone really is. In this post, we’ll break down what’s changing in identity proofing and onboarding, why it matters, and how to build a secure, user-friendly digital identity journey....

Introduction: Why Zero Trust, Why Now? In 2023, attackers breached a major global financial services company by compromising a single VPN account. That one set of stolen credentials gave them access deep into the network, exposing millions of customer records. The organization had spent millions hardening its perimeter firewalls—but once the attacker got inside, there were few controls to stop them. This is the reality of today’s threat landscape: the perimeter is porous, and identity is the true control point....