The legacy access approach is failing because the underlying model was never built to operate in a dynamic, multi-cloud, AI augmented enterprise. Every static entitlement granted and never revoked adds to the attack surface. Yet most organizations continue to rely on manual workflows, one-time provisioning, and spreadsheet-driven access reviews. This isn’t just inefficient—it’s unsustainable. From wasted engineering hours to hidden privilege sprawl, the real cost of legacy access isn’t visible on any budget line. But it shows up every time an incident happens.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

Most organizations recognize that their access controls are imperfect, but few account for the hidden operational and security debt created by manual workflows and static, entitlement-based authorization. The burden is often diffused across multiple teams, which makes it harder to quantify. But its impact is cumulative, structural, and increasingly untenable—particularly across the following three areas.

Operational Inefficiency

Static authorization creates administrative overhead that scales linearly with headcount and system complexity. Every new hire, role change, or resource requires a manual access decision—often routed through Jira tickets, email approvals, or ad hoc Slack threads. Teams rely on helpdesk workflows and “tribal knowledge” to grant or revoke access, introducing delays and inconsistencies.

Access reviews are equally costly. Without a centralized system to map entitlements across infrastructure, SaaS apps, and non-human identities (NHIs), reviews are spreadsheet-driven exercises that rarely result in meaningful reduction. In many organizations, they are treated as compliance requirements, not as security controls.

Risk Accumulation

Without time limits or automated revocation, entitlements persist long after they are needed. This leads to overprovisioning by default. Users change teams, projects, or roles—but their access often follows them indefinitely. NHIs are even harder to track. Service accounts created for temporary integrations, contractors, or automation pipelines rarely have a defined lifecycle.

This accumulation of privilege creates a quietly growing blast radius that only becomes visible during incident response or breach forensics.

Ownership Ambiguity

Authorization decisions often fall between teams. Security is accountable for risk outcomes but rarely owns the systems or workflows that govern access. Meanwhile, IT manages IdPs, engineering controls infrastructure code, application admins manage SaaS permissions, and DevOps often handles secrets, tokens, and NHIs. 

When no one owns access, everyone guesses. That means inconsistency, delays, and plenty of room for drift. Access is granted more quickly than it is reviewed or revoked. When an incident occurs, no single team has complete visibility or direct control, further exacerbating risk exposure.

Drift Becomes Dangerous

Ultimately, staying with static authorization doesn’t just carry security risk. It slows teams down, inflates compliance overhead, and forces security to operate reactively. This isn’t a phase. It’s a structural liability with symptoms of an architecture that no longer fits the systems it’s meant to protect. Over time, that misfit breeds security atrophy—teams normalize the drift, numb to the risk, until it explodes.

Want to learn about how we got here and how organizations are reducing risks and gaining control? Download our ebook, “Identity Drift: How Authorization Became the Quiet Breach Vector”.