Governance Patterns

Ensuring Continuous Integrity

Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) is the policy-driven orchestration of the entire identity ecosystem. While authentication and authorization handle the “front door,” governance is the internal audit department that ensures those systems are functioning according to the organization’s legal, security, and business standards. A mature governance strategy answers the four critical questions of identity: Who has access? Who granted it? Why do they have it? And is that access still appropriate today?

IGA

Governance & Compliance

Core Mission

Universal Accountability. Providing the visibility and control necessary to meet regulatory requirements (SOX, GDPR, HIPAA) while ensuring that the "Least Privilege" principle is enforced throughout the user lifecycle.

Like a City Auditor: The police (Authentication) and the courts (Authorization) keep the city safe day-to-day. But the Auditor regularly reviews the city's books, checks if the right people are in the right jobs, verifies that no one is misusing their keys to the city vault, and ensures that when someone leaves office, their name is removed from the payroll immediately.

Compliance Audits / Risk Reduction / Operational Efficiency

Governance Architecture Models

Governance can range from reactive “check-the-box” compliance to proactive, risk-aware orchestration.

Strategic Governance Matrix

Model	Mechanism	Best For	Security Value
Centralized	A single IGA platform manages all apps.	Enterprise compliance, SOX.	High
Federated	Business units manage their own reviews.	Agile, decentralized organizations.	Medium
Risk-Based	Reviews are triggered by behavior spikes.	High-security environments.	Maximum
Automated	Lifecycle events drive all access.	SaaS-heavy, rapid-growth teams.	High

The Governance Life Cycle

Effective governance is a perpetual loop of definition and validation, ensuring that security posture remains consistent even as the workforce changes.

1

Define (Policy)

Identify critical resources and define the "Golden State" of access—who should have permissions based on their role, department, and seniority.

2

Attest (Review)

Periodic "Certification Campaigns" require managers or resource owners to manually verify that their users' current access is still necessary.

3

Remediate

Any access that is not explicitly re-certified is automatically revoked. Discrepancies between the "Actual State" and "Golden State" are resolved in real-time.

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Technical Governance Pattern Guides

Master the implementation of automated compliance and identity administration.

Access Certifications

Designing workflows for regular verification of privileged and sensitive access.

Segregation of Duties

Automating the detection of conflicting permissions (e.g., Requesting vs Approving payments).

Lifecycle Management

Orchestrating the "Joiner-Mover-Leaver" process from a governance perspective.

Audit & Reporting

Generating the evidentiary reports required for SOX, HIPAA, and GDPR certifications.

Next Steps

• Explore Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for the foundation of governance policies.
• Review Least Privilege Strategy for minimizing the governance burden.
• Check Identity Analytics for discovering “over-privileged” users through data.