# Article Name What is Access Certification? # Article Summary Access certification is attestation in identity governance to enforce least privilege, assign ownership and provide audit evidence # Original HTML URL on Toriihq.com https://www.toriihq.com/articles/access-certification # Details Access certification keeps access rights aligned with roles and responsibilities. Regular reviews reveal who still needs access and who no longer does, and they create the audit trail auditors expect. Formal attestation campaigns let business and application owners confirm who needs which entitlements. They also produce traceable audit evidence that shows reviewers and auditors which access was approved and why. Effective certification campaigns use risk-based policies to focus reviewers on the highest exposures. Automation and tight SaaS integrations feed contextual signals and evidence to help enforce least privilege, assign ownership, and cut reviewer fatigue while speeding remediation and improving attestation accuracy. ## What is access certification? Access certification is the scheduled, formal attestation that user entitlements still match job responsibilities. It’s a control point where business owners, not just IT, confirm who should have access, and why, so access decisions reflect current roles and risk. Certification lives inside identity governance and administration (IGA) as a recurring workflow that ties identity data to business context. That connection is what separates a checklist from a defensible audit record. At the core, certification bundles five related elements that must work together to make reviews meaningful and actionable: - An accurate entitlement inventory so reviewers see what access exists. That inventory must be complete, normalized across systems, and updated automatically so reviewers base choices on reliable data. - Clear reviewer assignments so the right owner answers for each app. Assign ownership clearly, include alternates, and make it easy for reviewers to accept or delegate responsibilities during campaigns. - Attestation campaigns that define scope, frequency, and which roles must be reviewed each cycle. Set realistic cadences, target high-risk entitlements more often, and adjust scope when business structure changes to keep reviews efficient and relevant. - Approval or revocation actions that immediately enforce decisions in the directory or provisioning system. Ensure the workflow ties to automation and ticketing so approved removals are executed promptly and logged for follow-up if provisioning fails. - Retained audit evidence that records who approved changes, which entitlements were altered, and the exact timestamps. Store that evidence immutably, link it to campaign context, and make it searchable so auditors can verify decisions without manual reconstruction. Every component affects the rest, so gaps in any area weaken the certification outcome: a bad entitlement inventory makes reviewer decisions unsafe, and missing evidence makes an otherwise correct decision impossible to prove. Certification also acts as a coordination hub inside the IGA lifecycle, connecting provisioning, access requests, and deprovisioning. It hands off context from HR or app owners into the review process, and it feeds results back into the directory and ticketing systems so changes take effect. Vendors like Okta [https://www.okta.com] and Microsoft [https://www.microsoft.com] offer built-in access review features that show how campaign results map to provisioning events and audit logs, which helps close the loop between decision and action. Practical goals are clear, measurable targets that align with compliance and risk reduction: enforce least privilege, make ownership explicit, and produce traceable evidence for auditors. When certifications tie to business ownership and are retained as time-stamped records, they reduce disputes over who approved access and cut the friction during audits. Still, the field-level detail, who signed off and which entitlements were removed, is what turns a policy into proof. ## Why do organizations need regular access reviews? Regular access reviews keep permissions aligned with roles and lower security and compliance risk. They also help teams spot permission creep early, so fixes are faster and incidents less frequent. There are three concrete business drivers that make reviews non-negotiable. Enforcing least privilege shrinks the attack surface so a compromised account can’t move freely across systems. Second, audits under standards like SOX, HIPAA, PCI, and ISO expect demonstrable attestation records and timely revocations, not verbal assurances. Third, removing stale or excessive privileges shortens the window during which an insider or contractor can do harm. A 2023 study found insider actions still contribute to roughly 25–30% of security incidents, and this number climbs when access hygiene is neglected. For example, teams often discover leftover administrative keys or console accounts inside AWS [https://aws.amazon.com] after reorganizations. Scope and cadence should match risk level, application criticality, and user lifecycle events. Narrow, focused reviews beat broad checkbox campaigns and they free reviewers to make more meaningful decisions. - Privileged roles and admin accounts require frequent review because they can expose sensitive systems if left unchecked. - High-risk SaaS apps and external integrations deserve focused checks since third-party connections often introduce unexpected privileges. - Orphaned accounts and unused licenses should be identified and removed to reduce unnecessary access and licensing waste. - Contractors, vendors, and temporary staff need time-bound access reviews to prevent lingering permissions after engagements end. Typical participants include application owners and line managers as primary reviewers. IT or identity teams handle technical changes while HR or security resolve discrepancies about employment status or role definitions. A good program sets reviewer SLAs and uses business context so decisions aren’t just guesses. Skipping or delaying reviews creates visible consequences that cost time and trust. Attackers can use excessive rights for lateral movement, auditors will flag missing attestations or incomplete evidence, and remediation times stretch when stale access accumulates. Practical examples are common: contractors retaining access to Salesforce [https://www.salesforce.com] long after a project ends, which increases mean time to remediate and triggers painful audit follow-ups. Regular, risk-based reviews reduce those gaps and make security posture measurable. ## What challenges undermine access certification? Access certification can fail quietly and still leave major security gaps in your environment. Weak reviews allow stale permissions to linger, leave privileged accounts unchecked, and make it difficult to provide auditors with clear explanations. Reviewer fatigue is a top reason certification breaks down and it looks familiar across teams. When managers are asked to approve hundreds or thousands of entitlements without context, they burn out and start rubber-stamping just to clear queues. Common signs you’ll recognize include: - Low reviewer engagement and declining approval quality, - Long open exceptions queues waiting for decisions, - Repeated re-approvals on the same accounts, and - Broad approval patterns that ignore risk signals. Data quality gaps and scattered tools can make accurate certifications nearly impossible to run at scale without heavy manual work. Identity attributes that are out of date, entitlement names that do not match, or missing application owner contact details cause both false positives and false negatives in risk reporting. For example, inactive users in Microsoft 365 or orphaned IAM roles in AWS often remain because no application owner claims responsibility, so access never gets revoked. These problems cause slower remediation cycles, confusing exception histories, and audit findings that cite insufficient evidence or unclear reviewer rationale. These operational gaps manifest as measurable symptoms that teams see day-to-day and that auditors flag quickly. Expect repeat auditor follow-ups when evidence is fragmented, and rising insider risk when stale privileges enable employees to move laterally without detection. There are also organizational frictions to watch for: unclear reviewer responsibilities, weak role definitions, and no SLA for closing certifications, which together keep requests open and risk unresolved for too long. Spot these patterns early, and you’ll know where to focus automation, ownership, and data cleanup efforts. ## How can automation and SaaS tools improve access certification? Automation and SaaS integrations shrink reviewer workloads and help reviewers make faster, safer access decisions. Pulling license usage, last-login timestamps, entitlement ownership, and behavioral signals into certification workflows gives reviewers clear, actionable recommendations and shortens decision time. Automation captures the approval trail and records it as native evidence, saving hours of manual reporting during audits. Risk-based certification campaigns triage work so reviewers see the riskiest items first and campaigns stay focused. - Entitlements are prioritized by role, calculated risk score, and recent activity signals - Automated systems provide revocation recommendations and support one-click execution for remediation - Batch approvals, bulk remediation, and built-in escalation paths to clear backlogs quickly These controls reduce campaign volumes and help teams meet reviewer SLAs while cutting fatigue and rubber-stamping. Integrations with common SaaS platforms keep certification scoped to accounts that matter and avoid chasing stale identities. Tying into Microsoft 365 [https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-365] and Salesforce inventories lets automation filter out inactive mailboxes and unused CRM accounts so reviewers see only active, business-critical entitlements and make decisions faster. Provisioning connectors push revocations into systems like Okta [https://www.okta.com] and Google Workspace, closing the gap between a decision and actual removal of access. Credentials were involved in 61% of breaches in the Verizon DBIR 2023 analysis, so removing stale privileges reduces the real attack surface. Operational practices and feature settings make automation sustainable and audit-ready for the long term. Run a pilot on high-risk apps, enforce reviewer SLAs, and tune recommended revocations using real usage signals before expanding after early wins. Automated evidence capture timestamps reviewer actions and ties them to remediation steps so auditors can follow the end-to-end trail without extra work. Over time you'll see faster remediation, better attestation accuracy, fewer open exceptions, and clearer proof for auditors. ## Conclusion Access certification keeps identity access under control with regular reviews by resource owners. It connects inventories, reviewer roles, campaign workflows, and audit records into a process that limits privileges and shows who approved what. When organizations skip reviews, stale access and audit gaps increase risk and create unnecessary work for teams. Automating reviews and tying them to application inventories reduces reviewer load, focuses campaigns on active accounts, and removes leftover privileges faster. Access certification enforces least privilege, assigns clear ownership, and produces the audit trails auditors and security teams need. ## Audit your company's SaaS usage today If you're interested in learning more about SaaS Management, let us know. Torii's SaaS Management Platform can help you: - Find hidden apps: Use AI to scan your entire company for unauthorized apps. Happens in real-time and is constantly running in the background. - Cut costs: Save money by removing unused licenses and duplicate tools. - Implement IT automation: Automate your IT tasks to save time and reduce errors - like offboarding and onboarding automation. - Get contract renewal alerts: Ensure you don't miss important contract renewals. Torii is the industry's first all-in-one SaaS Management Platform, providing a single source of truth across Finance, IT, and Security. Learn more by visiting Torii [https://www.toriihq.com].