Access Reviews
Access reviews are periodic evaluations of user permissions to ensure individuals have only the access they need—and nothing more. By validating accounts, roles, and entitlements, access reviews enforce least privilege, reduce insider risk, and prevent compliance violations. They are a core component of identity governance, providing visibility, accountability, and audit trails across hybrid IT and cloud environments.
What are access reviews?
Access reviews, also known as access certifications, are structured processes where managers, system owners, or auditors verify that users’ permissions align with their roles and responsibilities. Reviews help detect excessive privileges, orphaned accounts, or toxic role combinations. They are essential in regulated industries to demonstrate compliance with data protection and security standards.
Why are access reviews important?
Without regular reviews, organizations risk privilege creep and unauthorized access. Access reviews are critical because they enforce least privilege and prevent overexposure of sensitive data, detect and remove stale or orphaned accounts, ensure compliance with GDPR, HIPAA, SOX, PCI DSS, and other regulations, reduce the risk of insider threats and privilege misuse, and provide audit evidence for regulators and stakeholders.
What are the key steps in an access review?
- Scope definition: Identify which systems, applications, and accounts are included.
- Review and validation: Managers or owners verify user access rights.
- Remediation: Revoke or adjust access that is unnecessary or excessive.
- Certification: Confirm completion of the review for audit purposes.
- Reporting: Provide logs and summaries for compliance and security teams.
How do access reviews work?
- Identity governance tools collect data on current user permissions.
- Reviewers are assigned (e.g., managers, data owners, or auditors).
- Access rights are approved, adjusted, or revoked based on policies.
- Automation ensures changes are applied consistently across systems.
- Reports and attestations are generated to demonstrate compliance.
Use Cases
- Healthcare: Ensures only authorized clinicians and staff have access to patient data, reducing HIPAA compliance risks.
- Financial Services: Validates trader, auditor, and back-office permissions to prevent fraud and meet SOX requirements.
- Government & Legal: Provides accountability by regularly certifying access to classified or sensitive systems.
- Cloud & SaaS Providers: Reviews user and API entitlements to prevent excessive or misconfigured access in multi-tenant environments.
How Netwrix can help
Netwrix simplifies access reviews with Identity Management, Privileged Access Management (PAM), and Data Security Posture Management (DSPM). With Netwrix solutions, organizations can:
- Automate the collection and presentation of access rights for review.
- Detect and remediate excessive or unnecessary privileges.
- Run periodic certification campaigns to enforce least privilege.
- Provide audit-ready evidence to regulators and stakeholders.
This reduces manual effort, strengthens security, and ensures compliance with industry standards.
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