SaaS has transformed the way teams work, but it has also made identity and access management more complicated than ever. With every new department-specific or company-wide tool, security teams are faced with more permissions to monitor, more accounts to audit, and more risk to manage. The days of annual spreadsheet-driven user access reviews are numbered.
Manual reviews are slow, error-prone, and often fail to meet modern compliance standards like SOC 2 and ISO 27001. And in environments where new apps are constantly being adopted and access changes daily, a delayed review process creates serious blind spots.
To stay ahead, security and compliance leaders need to move toward continuous, automated access reviews, supported by real-time visibility and smart workflows. In this guide, we’ll break down how to automate user access reviews effectively, what a secure access review really looks like, and how Wing Security’s SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) platform makes the process faster, simpler, and more secure.
What is a user access review and why does it matter?
At its core, a user access review is a formal process to evaluate and verify whether users still need access to specific applications, data, and systems. Without regular review, users can accumulate unnecessary permissions, also known as privilege creep, that expand the attack surface and complicate enforcement of least-privilege principles.
In SaaS-centric environments, these reviews are essential for identifying:
- Users with excessive permissions
Some individuals have more access than their role requires. This could include a marketing intern with admin privileges in a financial reporting tool or a superadmin whose broad privileges may not be appropriate. For example, an HR systems admin with superadmin access to engineering tools like GitHub or Jira creates unnecessary risk if that access isn’t actively required or reviewed.
- Stale accounts (such as contractors or former employees)
These are accounts that remain active despite the user no longer being with the organization. For instance, a former contractor with lingering access to a customer support dashboard like Zendesk can become a silent vulnerability. These platforms often contain customer data, support histories, and internal notes that could be exploited if accessed maliciously or inadvertently.
- Inappropriate access to sensitive or regulated data
This includes access by users who should not have visibility into protected or high-risk data. For example, a customer success representative with access to a cloud storage folder containing legal documents and contracts may unintentionally expose sensitive business data if their access is not appropriately restricted.
Many organizations are required to conduct these reviews under compliance mandates. User access review for compliance is not only about meeting a minimum set of specs. It’s a critical process that demonstrates due diligence, enforces internal controls, and aligns with frameworks like SOC 2 and ISO 27001. These audits often require proof that user access permission reviews are both regular and documented.
When ignored or mishandled, access reviews can become serious security liabilities. In fact, numerous real-world breaches have involved active or stale accounts that retained inappropriate access due to infrequent or ineffective reviews. In many cases, these accounts went undetected for months, highlighting the need for more proactive and continuous access oversight.
Why manual access reviews don’t cut it anymore
Traditional user access reviews are largely manual. They typically involve downloading access data from various systems, populating spreadsheets, emailing managers for review, and consolidating responses to submit for audit. Here’s where that approach falls short:
- Decentralized access
With hundreds of SaaS apps in use across departments, IT and security teams often lack full visibility into who has access to what. This fragmented view makes it difficult to enforce least-privilege access, increasing the risk of users holding outdated or unnecessary permissions.
- Stale data
Manual exports provide a snapshot in time but fail to reflect real-time access changes. Permissions can shift daily, especially when employees take on new responsibilities or when new SaaS tools are added without centralized oversight.
- Human error
It’s easy to miss subtle signs of excessive permissions, especially when reviews are rushed or done infrequently. Managers may approve access without fully understanding what’s at stake or may overlook access that should have been revoked long ago.
- Visibility gaps
Shadow IT and unsanctioned SaaS usage mean that even the best-intentioned reviews may miss critical access pathways entirely. Without full visibility into all connected apps, security teams may never know certain risky access even exists.
Attackers know this and are escalating their efforts to take advantage of these vulnerabilities. Identity-based attacks are on the rise, with over 60% of breaches now involving compromised credentials, according to the 2024 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report. Every unmonitored access point is an opportunity for attackers to move laterally, exfiltrate data, or escalate privileges within your environment before anyone notices.
Automating user access reviews: how it works
An automated access review shifts the burden from overworked IT teams to intelligent systems. Conducting an access review with SSPM allows organizations to centralize oversight, enforce policy-driven reviews, and scale governance as their SaaS environments grow.Instead of cobbling together data and chasing approvals manually, organizations can use platforms like Wing Security’s SSPM solution to streamline every part of the review process with:
- Continuous access discovery: Wing Security’s platform connects to your organization’s identity provider and SaaS stack to map out all user access, including shadow IT and unmanaged apps. This allows security teams to maintain an up-to-date inventory of who has access to what across every tool in use.
- Contextual risk assessment: The platform analyzes access based on risk signals like user role, data sensitivity, behavioral anomalies, and geographic context. For example, it can flag when a non-finance employee gains access to a sensitive finance tool or when login behavior deviates from normal patterns.
- Scheduled and risk-triggered reviews: Rather than waiting for quarterly review cycles, automation enables event-based triggers. If a user suddenly gains access to an application outside their functional role, or permissions increase unusually, a review is automatically initiated.
- Automated review assignment and remediation: Access reviews are routed to the appropriate owners based on organizational policies. Reviewers can see detailed usage patterns and recommendations, allowing them to approve or revoke access directly within the platform.
- Audit-ready reporting: Every step in the access review process is logged and timestamped, creating a full audit trail. This makes it easy to demonstrate compliance during audits and respond quickly to regulatory inquiries.
Automation ensures that user access reviews are accurate, scalable, and capable of keeping pace with SaaS sprawl. For organizations focused on audit readiness and internal oversight, this level of efficiency is essential to delivering consistent user access review for compliance. It removes the guesswork and delay associated with manual reviews, enabling organizations to act on access risks in real time, rather than weeks or months later.
This not only strengthens the organization’s security posture, it also helps build confidence with auditors and stakeholders who expect transparency and control.
What is a secure access review?
A secure access review goes beyond meeting the letter of compliance rules. It’s a foundational control that prevents privilege creep, enforces least-privilege principles, and minimizes the organization’s attack surface. A secure process ensures that:
- The review is based on real-time data, not outdated exports that miss recent access changes.
- It covers all users and apps, including shadow IT and unsanctioned tools, to eliminate blind spots.
- Reviewers are given contextual insights, including usage patterns and role relevance, enabling them to make informed decisions.
- The process leads to enforcement, ensuring that access is revoked when no longer needed—not just documented for audit purposes.
In contrast, manual, infrequent reviews rely on stale data, lack context, and fail to enforce necessary changes. Over time, these weaknesses compound, increasing both the attack surface and the likelihood of a compliance failure.
An effective SSPM platform, like Wing Security’s, supports secure access reviews by integrating with identity providers (such as Okta or Azure AD), SaaS platforms (like Google Workspace, Salesforce, and GitHub), and internal risk indicators. This real-time, cross-platform visibility empowers security teams to make better decisions, act quickly, and demonstrate compliance with confidence.
Frequency and compliance: how often should reviews happen?
Understanding how often access should be reviewed is critical to maintaining a secure and compliant SaaS environment. Many organizations default to quarterly or annual reviews simply to meet audit requirements. In reality, review frequency should be tied to actual risk exposure, user behavior, and operational context.
Compliance frameworks offer guidance that can serve as a starting point:
- SOC 2: Requires regular review of access, typically interpreted as quarterly or semi-annual depending on risk exposure
- ISO 27001: Calls for periodic review of access rights
- HIPAA and PCI-DSS: Also require regular access review, with particular emphasis on users accessing sensitive data
Beyond compliance, factors that influence frequency include:
- User role: Privileged accounts (e.g., admins or developers) should be reviewed more frequently. For especially sensitive roles, automated tools can support continuous review by flagging when permissions change, when access goes unused for an extended period, or when a user’s responsibilities shift. This real-time oversight helps prevent privilege creep and ensures that least-privilege policies are enforced consistently.
- Data sensitivity: Systems storing PII, PHI, or financial data warrant closer monitoring. The more sensitive the data, the higher the risk of damage from unauthorized access, making it essential to audit who has access and whether it’s still necessary on a regular basis.
- Organizational changes: Mergers, restructures, or offboarding events should trigger immediate reviews. These transitions often result in role changes, team shifts, or account deactivation oversights, all of which can create blind spots if not addressed promptly.
Automated tools help organizations meet these requirements effortlessly, with scheduled reviews and dynamic alerts built into their workflows. For example, a privileged user accessing a high-value financial application from an unusual location or time zone can automatically trigger an immediate review, rather than waiting for a quarterly cycle.
By incorporating automation and risk intelligence, review frequency becomes a strategic decision that reflects the true exposure of the business, rather than a static policy. This approach not only reduces the risk of inappropriate access but also ensures audit-readiness at any moment.
Real-world fallout: when access reviews are neglected
In October 2023, identity management provider Okta disclosed a breach of its customer support system. Initially, the company reported that approximately 1% of its 18,400 customers were affected. However, further investigation revealed that attackers used stolen credentials to access a database containing names and email addresses of all Okta customer support users and some employees.
This isn’t an isolated case. According to IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach report, organizations that extensively implemented security AI and automation saved an average of USD 2.2 million in breach costs compared to those that didn’t. This highlights how effective automation, including access governance, can directly reduce the financial impact of breaches.
An effective user access review process starts with SSPM
SSPM platforms like Wing Security’s are purpose-built to close the SaaS visibility gap. They provide a central lens into every user, app, and access point to automate key processes like access reviews and allow security teams to:
- Discover and map all SaaS access in real time
- Detect and remediate risky or unused access
- Prioritize risk to identify the most pressing issues first
- Automate recurring reviews with built-in logic and policy enforcement
- Generate audit-ready reports for any point in time
These capabilities are essential for security teams managing a fast-growing SaaS footprint, where visibility gaps and manual processes create real exposure. By automating your user access review process with an SSPM like Wing Security’s, you gain the speed, accuracy, and coverage needed to protect your environment and satisfy auditors. You also give your security team the time and clarity to focus on what matters proactive defense, not paperwork.
For SOC teams that are still relying on spreadsheets, static exports, or once-a-year reviews, it’s time to take a critical look at your access governance strategy. With Wing Security, you can easily automate access reviews across all SaaS apps, identify and remediate risky access, and streamline compliance.
Ready to see how it works? Explore Wing’s SaaS identity security platform.