Identity and Access Management and Identity Governance Explained

Mitigating identity-related access risks is critical as organizations face evolving threats daily. As businesses shift to multi-cloud and hybrid environments, identity sprawl such as shadow IT and unmanaged SaaS apps has become a top attack vector. Identity and access management (IAM) and identity governance and administration (IGA) must now secure identities beyond corporate perimeters, spanning AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and SaaS platforms like Salesforce. 

Managing access and digital identities and their risks has grown more crucial as challenges arise from proliferating identities in modern networks. This places IAM and IGA at the center of many security strategies. Today, these efforts increasingly align with Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), a model that assumes no implicit trust and continuously validates access, making IAM and IGA vital for enforcing least-privilege policies. 

Yet IAM and IGA are often conflated in cybersecurity discussions. IT leaders and security experts sometimes disagree on their relationship but understanding how they connect and how identity itself fits are key to building a strong identity program. IGA is a subset of IAM, essential for governance within broader identity management. 

Identity 

 Modern identities are not just human. They also include machine identities, such as service accounts, APIs and operational technology (such as IoT devices), as well as cloud workloads like virutal machines and containers. Managing these at scale requires IAM and IGA solutions that unify on-premises, cloud and third-party identities in a cohesive governance model. 

In Bravura Identity, human identities are modelled through core attributes such as email addresses, employee IDs, and department roles while machine identities use attributes such as service-account owners, API endpoint permissions and environment fingerprinting. Designed to handle both, Bravura Identity collectively automates access provisioning, role assignments, and compliance audits.  As identity lifecycles rapidly change and  networks grow more complex, identity access management has become essential to maintain security and reduce identity-related risks. 

Identity Access Management  

Gartner defines IAM as “the discipline that enables the right individuals to access the right resources at the right times for the right reasons.” It manages digital identities and controls their access to data, systems, and applications. In cloud environments, IAM must address: 

• Multi-cloud permission dispersion: While AWS IAM roles and Azure AD entitlements centralize controls within their respective platforms, provisioning across AWS + Azure + on-prem creates fragmented governance requiring CIEM solutions." 

• Overprivileged service accounts: According to Google Cloud's H1 2025 Threat Horizons Report, overprivileged service accounts triggered 46.4% of cloud security alerts in H2 2024 and enabled 62.2% of lateral movement incidents making them a leading enabler of cloud breaches. 

• Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM): tools to detect excessive permissions across clouds. 

In Zero Trust frameworks, IAM moves beyond static permissions. Access is granted dynamically based on real-time risk signals like user behavior, device health and location, then revoked after sessions expire. This shifts the model from "trust by default" to "verify explicitly." 

Identity Governance Administration 

Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) provides oversight and auditing in a way that helps organizations better mitigate identity-related risks. As a core component of identity and access management (IAM), IGA improves visibility into user identities and access privileges while strengthening controls to prevent inappropriate access. 

Modern cloud IGA solutions address three key areas: 

• Hybrid access governance: Providing unified oversight of entitlements across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and on-premises systems (e.g., Active Directory, SAP).  

• Lifecycle automation: Oversees and reports on consistent policy execution, such as automatically revoking access to SaaS applications (Slack, Teams) and on-prem resources (network shares, databases) when employees leave. 

• Compliance enforcement: including GDPR and HIPAA rule implementation across cloud platforms 

In Zero Trust environments, IGA becomes even more critical. These systems provide comprehensive audit trails and are used to conduct periodic access reviews.  This ensures that automation is functioning correctly to maintain compliance. For example, IGA tools in Zero Trust architectures routinely surface orphaned accounts or excessive permissions that violate "never trust, always verify" principles. 

IGA solutions create connections between people, applications, data, and devices. They help IT administrators: 

• Identify who has access to which resources 

• Assess associated risks 

• Generate reports suggesting corrective action when violations occur 

These systems also simplify key security processes for access certification and attestation. 

How Do IGA and IAM Differ? 

IGA and IAM may sound similar, but they differ in function and purpose. IGA tools help organizations enforce, review and audit IAM policies.  

• IAM governs JML (Joiners-Movers-Leavers) workflows by automating both standing access and time-bound privileged access such as temporary credentials for operational roles to enforce least privilege. 

• IGA maintains compliance by auditing permissions for resources like S3 buckets or Mainframe 

 IAM implements policies to enforce compliance requirements at the access layer (e.g., role-based permissions, authentication). IGA acts as the 'control plane' that audits these executions, generating compliance exception reports when IAM outcomes deviate from regulatory standards or business policies. 

Full Identity Automation  

IT and security teams, including administrators and help desk personnel, have historically been responsible for IAM and IGA.  In the past, they were the gatekeepers for creating, updating, maintaining, and deleting identities across systems primarily using manual procedures. The proliferation of resources across networks from devices, applications, and systems has made automated IAM necessary. Manual management introduces errors and inefficiencies.  A Zero Trust approach to security acknowledges the erosion between the “inside” world and “outside” world. As classic perimeter defense plateaus, solutions like Bravura Identity, part of the Bravura Security Fabric, serve an increasingly vital role byr revoking orphaned and dormant accounts, pruning overprivileged access, and synchronizing least privilege across hybrid ecosystems.  Such an approach represents a methodological shift from the reactive to the proactive. 

Elevate your security and efficiency: Modernize identity access and governance with Bravura Identity's full automation (IAM & IGA). Experience how our cutting-edge solution enables your organization to proactively mitigate risk, ensure seamless compliance, and drive powerful network-wide efficiency gains. Take control and invest in a smarter, more secure future.