Identity sprawl

What is identity sprawl?

Identity sprawl is the accumulation of user accounts, service accounts, privileged identities, and non-human identities across multiple systems without consistent governance. It commonly occurs when organizations adopt new SaaS applications, cloud platforms, and directories faster than they retire old ones or align them under a single identity strategy.

Each system creates its own identities, roles, and permissions. Over time, this results in duplicate accounts, stale access, inconsistent enforcement of least privilege, and limited visibility into who has access to what, and why.

Why is identity sprawl a security risk?

Identity sprawl expands the attack surface by creating more credentials, permissions, and trust relationships than security teams can reasonably manage. Common risks include orphaned accounts left behind after employees leave, overprivileged users with access far beyond job requirements, and service accounts with long‑lived credentials that are rarely reviewed.

These conditions make it easier for attackers to escalate privileges, move laterally, and access sensitive data without triggering alerts. From a compliance perspective, identity sprawl also undermines audit readiness by making it difficult to prove effective access controls.

How does identity sprawl develop?

Identity sprawl typically grows from a combination of decentralized IT decisions and manual processes. Cloud adoption, mergers and acquisitions, shadow IT, and rapid onboarding of SaaS tools all contribute. When provisioning and deprovisioning are handled separately in each system, identities persist longer than intended and permissions accumulate over time.

Lack of ownership is another factor. When no single team is responsible for identity governance across environments, inconsistencies and gaps become inevitable.

Use cases

• Healthcare: Duplicate identities across clinical systems and third-party platforms increase the risk of stale access to PHI and HIPAA exposure.
• Financial services: Fragmented identities across legacy and cloud systems weaken segregation of duties and complicate audit controls.
• Manufacturing: Mixed IT/OT environments and contractor access create unmanaged identities with poor visibility into production systems and intellectual property.

How to reduce identity sprawl

Reducing identity sprawl starts with visibility. Organizations need a centralized view of all identities, human and non-human, across directories, cloud platforms, and applications.

Key practices include automating identity lifecycle management so access is provisioned, adjusted, and removed based on role changes; enforcing least privilege through role‑based access models; and conducting regular access certifications to remove unnecessary permissions. Consolidating identity sources and standardizing policies across environments further limits sprawl over time.

How Netwrix can help

Netwrix helps organizations reduce identity sprawl by centralizing identity governance across hybrid and cloud environments.

Netwrix Identity Manager provides a unified view of human and non-human identities across directories, cloud platforms, and applications. By consolidating identity data into a single governance layer, it becomes clear who has access to what, why they have it, and whether that access is still required.

Automated joiner, mover, and leaver workflows ensure access is provisioned, adjusted, and removed based on real role changes, not manual processes. Role-based access models and policy-driven enforcement help prevent privilege creep and maintain least privilege as environments evolve.

Built-in access certifications and attestations make it easy to regularly review access and eliminate orphaned accounts, stale permissions, and excessive entitlements. Every access decision is tracked and documented, supporting audit readiness and compliance requirements.

For operational enforcement at the directory level, Netwrix Directory Manager automates group and user management across Active Directory and Entra ID, ensuring memberships stay accurate and identities are deprovisioned when no longer needed.

Together, these capabilities give organizations lasting control over identities, reducing sprawl at the source instead of reacting to its consequences.