With some exceptions, such as IBM and SailPoint, today’s cloud workforce IAM solutions still lack some functionality in user account provisioning, auditing, and IAM policy management, especially for on-premises applications — something Forrester has seen vendors slowly improving over the past two years. Con: The cloud may increase your threat surface.

One North American government agency determined that it took two weeks for its users to obtain all their access rights; however, a user account provisioning product and template-based joiner access request process reduced this to fewer than two days. Similarly, a US insurance firm has reduced its user provisioning time from three weeks to three business days. Faster provisioning times translate into improved user productivity and satisfaction.

Matrix42 plans to enhance its SaaS management capabilities by expanding its visibility into cloud services and automating key processes like user account provisioning and deprovisioning. Matrix42 aims to use AI to analyze Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services cost data, identify cost anomalies, predict future spending trends, and recommend optimization strategies. Capabilities.

Failure to account for interdependencies among IAM capabilities. IAM projects are often closely related; you can automate user account provisioning only if your user stores and federation processes and tools are in order. Multifactor authentication (MFA) is best implemented if you have a well-oiled web environment that is utilizing single sign-on. An IAM roadmap forces discovery and planning for these interdependencies and reduces implementation and rework costs.

Behavioral Biometrics Account takeovers and privilege escalation in user sessions are hard to detect if perpetrators already possess all authenticators (including vulnerable passwords) and verified identity credentials of their victims. Hackers still cannot — even with AI-aided tools — effectively hijack and imitate normal legitimate user behavior such as typing, mouse movement, and screen-tapping patterns.

Integrated SaaS admin and privileged user identity management and governance. SaaS apps today don’t have built-in identity lifecycle management for provisioning, access review, and deprovisioning. While SaaS apps may support just-in-time SAML, OIDC access-request-based, or SCIM provisioning, they lack access review functionality.

Using workforce identity platforms for cloud user directories, SSO, and simple user account provisioning will boost your chances of a successful workload migration. Providing the identity backbone for data protection in the cloud — i.e., encryption key management and access control — can also prove IAM’s value.

Another common but flawed design pattern is provisioning an administrator account to administrators in addition to their normal, personal employee account. The admin then uses this account to perform privileged actions. Both approaches are difficult to monitor, and they regularly fail compliance audits.

Users can check their investments and liabilities (e.g., credit card balance). Figure 4 ICICI Bank’s iFinance Provides A Detailed Overview Of Users Accounts (Internal & External) This figure contains three screenshots of ICICI Bank’s mobile banking iFinance features. Users can see the transactions of their external bank accounts, spending categories, and transaction details.

Plot Twist: The Good People (Security Researchers) Found The Breaches Security researchers, not attackers, were responsible for discovering some of the largest breaches of 2025, including the API flaw in WhatsApp that exposed 3.5 billion user accounts, the publicly available Mars Hydro database that exposed 2.7 billion Wi-Fi names and passwords, and the McDonald’s/Paradox weak password issue that exposed 64 million McHire user accounts.