Access management

What is access management?

Access management refers to the processes and technologies that determine who or what can access specific resources or data. Once a user or system’s identity is confirmed (authenticated), access management governs their permissions and privileges. It enforces policies like role-based access control (RBAC) and the principle of least privilege, ensuring each identity only accesses what it legitimately needs. In essence, it’s about authorization – granting or denying actions based on an entity’s identity and defined access rights.

How does it affect identity security?

Effective access management is critical to identity security because it acts as the gatekeeper to sensitive information and systems. Even a valid user, if given excessive permissions, can become an insider threat or cause unintentional damage. By tightly controlling access, organizations minimize the attack surface – for example, restricting admin-level functions to only those who require it. Many data breaches stem from compromised credentials or abused privileges, so robust access management helps prevent a stolen identity from turning into a full system compromise​. It ensures that even if authentication is bypassed or credentials are stolen, the potential damage is limited by stringent authorization checks.

Case study

A notable example highlighting the need for strict access management is the 2019 Capital One breach. In that incident, an attacker exploited a misconfigured web application firewall to obtain credentials for a cloud IAM role, which then allowed access to millions of customer records stored in Amazon S3​. Essentially, a weakness in access management (an over-permissive role accessible via a vulnerability) was leveraged to bypass defenses. 

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