Identity Access Management Blog Series | Part 3: The Risk of Zero Trust Without IAM

In the initial post in this series, I discussed how Identity Access Management (IAM) is a critical component under the umbrella of Zero Trust.  In the 2^nd post, I took a deeper dive on the importance of IAM principles being integrated into any Zero Trust strategy. But what happens when organizations address other areas of Zero Trust without first maturing their IAM platforms?

Implementing Zero Trust architecture without first establishing a robust IAM platform leads to significant security vulnerabilities. IAM falls directly under the Zero Trust umbrella and should be the first component addressed in any implementation, these case studies illustrate the real-world consequences of failing to prioritize IAM.

Inconsistent Access Controls in Global Operations:

• Scenario: A multinational corporation attempted to implement Zero Trust principles without first standardizing access policies across regional offices for both users and internal applications.
• Impact: Security gaps emerged where employees and services in different locations had inconsistent access rights to the same resources, creating exploitable vulnerabilities.
• Solution: A centralized IAM platform would enforce uniform access control policies, ensuring employees with the same role and applications with the same function have consistent permissions regardless of location.

Healthcare Data Breach Due to Credential Theft:

• Scenario: A healthcare organization experienced a security breach when an attacker used stolen service account credentials to access patient records. The organization had implemented some Zero Trust components but had not prioritized their IAM infrastructure first.
• Impact: Without robust service authentication and continuous monitoring, the attacker maintained extended access to sensitive medical data through compromised application credentials.
• Solution: A comprehensive IAM system would detect unusual API call patterns and require additional verification for service accounts, blocking unauthorized access attempts even with valid credentials.

Financial Institution Excess Privilege Exploitation:

• Scenario: A financial services company granted broad system access to employees and internal applications instead of first establishing a proper IAM foundation with least privilege principles.
• Impact: When an application account was compromised, the attacker gained significantly more access than necessary, increasing the breach’s scope and damage.
• Solution: Enforced least privilege access would limit each user’s and application’s permissions to only those resources essential for their role or function, containing potential damage from compromised accounts.

Insider Threat Detection Failure:

• Scenario: A technology firm implemented various Zero Trust components but neglected to first establish proper identity monitoring capabilities for user and service activity within their systems.
• Impact: An automated workflow system’s unusual data access pattern went undetected for months, allowing the exfiltration of proprietary information.
• Solution: IAM’s continuous monitoring capabilities would identify anomalous access patterns from both human users and machine identities, triggering immediate investigation and preventing similar data loss.

Regulatory Compliance Challenges:

• Scenario: A retail company struggled to provide adequate documentation during a regulatory audit of their access controls for both human users and application services after implementing Zero Trust without first addressing their identity foundation.
• Impact: The organization faced penalties for non-compliance and incurred significant costs reconstructing access histories across user and service accounts.
• Solution: IAM’s comprehensive logging and audit trail capabilities provide the detailed documentation required for regulatory compliance, demonstrating appropriate access controls for all entity types, including applications and services.

These cases demonstrate that attempting to implement Zero Trust architecture without first establishing a strong IAM foundation significantly reduces security effectiveness and creates substantial operational and compliance risks. As IAM is a core component under the Zero Trust umbrella, it must be the first priority in any implementation strategy.

With this understanding, the question now becomes how to get started.

In the 4^th and final post in this series, I’ll provide a comprehensive implementation framework to help plan, support and execute the actions for maturing an organization’s IAM solution.

Robert Jordan MST, CISSP
Zero Trust Design Architect

Robert Jordan is Zero Trust Cybersecurity Architect and advisor with 20+ years of experience in designing engineering and architecting network and cybersecurity solutions for healthcare, aerospace, and government customers.  He frequently delivers Zero Trust Cyber Security educational workshops to commercial, SLED and Federal technology leaders.

Want more information on how to leverage IAM to fortify your Zero Trust architecture? Download our latest ebook.