Managing user identities and access privileges across multiple applications has become increasingly complex for modern organizations. As employees engage with a vast array of systems daily, IT teams face the daunting task of coordinating identity governance in an environment where fragmented access control often leads to security risks, inconsistent policy enforcement, and compliance challenges. This blog explores the root causes of these issues and demonstrates how Pathlock’s solution is a unified platform that brings clarity to identity governance through centralized access management, automated processes, and streamlined access certification.
To understand the complexity of identity governance, let’s break down the key concepts:
In practice, a single user might have multiple accounts in different systems—or even multiple accounts within the same application. Without tying these accounts to a single identity, organizations can’t gain an accurate view of access risks. For example, if a user has two accounts in an SAP environment, traditional SAP Access Control might show risk only at the individual account level. This means critical, combined risks posed by the user’s access across accounts could go completely undetected.
The lack of visibility into risks at the identity level is a significant problem, especially in complex environments with multiple applications. If organizations can’t link user accounts across applications, they risk overlooking cumulative access, which can introduce serious security risks. This is particularly concerning in multi-application ecosystems where employees access not only SAP but also systems like Salesforce, Oracle, or Concur. Traditional SAP Access Control lacks the capability to connect to these non-SAP applications, leading to gaps in oversight and risk management.
Without centralized access control, several issues emerge:
Pathlock provides a powerful answer to these challenges with a unified platform that centralizes access management, connects identities across applications, and automates key identity governance tasks. Here’s how Pathlock addresses each issue:
Pathlock connects with both SAP and non-SAP applications, tying accounts to unique identities by syncing with an organization’s HR system of record, such as Active Directory or Workday. This centralization means Pathlock can view all access points associated with a single identity, enabling a comprehensive risk assessment.
Through a single platform, Pathlock unifies access rules, policies, and role-based controls for each application. This consistency ensures that users adhere to standardized access policies across all applications, reducing the likelihood of policy violations and improving overall security.
Managing user access manually across dozens of applications can be slow, inefficient, and error-prone. Pathlock automates user access through Joiner, Mover, Leaver (JML) workflows that ensure immediate provisioning or removal of access based on HR-triggered events like onboarding, promotions, or termination.
With automated provisioning and deprovisioning, Pathlock enforces consistent access assignments and prevents former employees or transferred users from retaining unauthorized access. This leads to better standardization of access and ultimately lowers the risk of privilege creep.
Access certifications are critical to maintaining an accurate access landscape. Pathlock streamlines this process by providing a unified, identity-level view across all applications and accounts. Unlike SAP Access Control, which can only manage certifications within SAP environments, Pathlock extends this capability across the entire SAP and non-SAP application landscape.
What sets Pathlock’s certification process apart is the inclusion of contextual data, such as access usage and associated risks. With this information, decision-makers can make more informed revocation decisions, leading to significant reductions in unnecessary access and privilege creep. In fact, studies have shown that traditional account-level certification has revocation rates of around 2-3%. With Pathlock’s identity-level, context-rich certifications, revocation rates can increase to 20-30%, greatly reducing the organization’s risk exposure.
A key advantage of Pathlock is its ability to simplify compliance reporting through centralized, real-time visibility into access risks. By connecting directly with HR and identity systems of record, Pathlock ensures that organizations can prove regulatory adherence by demonstrating that all user access is accounted for and risks are managed in a standardized way. Auditors can access a consistent, real-time view of access and risk data, simplifying the audit process and reducing documentation requirements.
In today’s multi-application world, managing identity governance is no easy task. Fragmented systems, privilege creep, and compliance challenges are all amplified by disconnected access control solutions. Pathlock simplifies identity governance with centralized access management, automated JML workflows, and comprehensive access certifications across the entire application ecosystem. By unifying access governance into a single platform, Pathlock helps organizations reduce risk, standardize compliance, and gain a true understanding of access across all systems—SAP and beyond.
With Pathlock, organizations can truly tame the access chaos and achieve a streamlined, compliant, and secure identity governance process in today’s complex, multi-application world.
Contact us today for a customized demo.
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