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Why Privileged Access Reviews Should Be a CISO’s Quarterly Ritual
- rcase18
- Jul 2
- 4 min read
Over 70% of breaches involve human error or misuse of access. And a lot of that boils down to one thing: someone had more access than they needed. It’s easy to grant privileges and forget about them. Happens all the time. But without regular check-ins, users start collecting permissions like souvenirs. Before you know it, you’ve got service accounts, vendors, or even ex-employees floating around with keys to the castle. Privileged access reviews aren’t just a best practice. They’re a necessary ritual for tightening controls, limiting exposure, and staying out of the headlines.
What Are Privileged Access Reviews?
A privileged access review is a structured check-in to validate who has elevated access to your systems, why they have it, and whether they still need it. It covers admin accounts, service accounts, and high-level users such as domain admins. These are the people or systems with the power to make major changes or bypass controls. The goal is to answer a few key questions: Who has access? What can they do with it? And does that access still make sense?
The Business Risks of Skipping Reviews
When privileged access reviews fall off the radar, gaps start to form, and those gaps are exactly where incidents begin. The risks aren’t hypothetical. They’re already sitting inside most environments, quietly waiting for the wrong moment.
Here are the risks:
Unauthorized access to critical systems: Without regular reviews, users or systems may retain access to sensitive infrastructure they no longer need, increasing the risk of exploitation or misuse.
Former employees retaining access: If offboarding processes aren't backed by access reviews, ex-employees can retain credentials that give them (or attackers) a backdoor into your environment.
Compliance violations (HIPAA, SOX, ISO 27001, etc.): Most regulations require evidence of access control and periodic reviews. Skipping them opens your organization up to fines, failed audits, and reputational damage.
Breach amplification through lateral movement: Attackers who compromise a single account can move laterally across systems if privileges are too broad, escalating the impact of a breach within minutes.
Why Quarterly?
A quarterly cadence strikes the right balance between staying proactive and avoiding unnecessary churn. It lines up with most compliance schedules and internal risk management cycles, making it easier to document and act on findings. Reviewing too frequently creates noise and drains resources. Waiting too long, however, means outdated access can go unnoticed and become a liability. In cloud and DevOps environments where roles shift fast, quarterly reviews help keep access tightly aligned with actual need.
What to Include in a Review
Every review should follow a consistent structure that surfaces risk, clarifies access decisions, and documents findings for future audits. Here's what a strong privileged access review should include:
Inventory of all privileged accounts (human and non-human)
Start with a complete list of all accounts that hold elevated access, including users, service accounts, and automation tools. Without this baseline, you can't evaluate what shouldn't be there.
Justification for each account’s access level
Each privileged account should have a clear, documented reason for its level of access. If no one can explain why the access exists, it's a red flag.
Verification of least privilege enforcement
Check whether each account truly has the minimum access necessary to perform its function. Excessive permissions often go unnoticed and create unnecessary risk.
Removal or downgrading of unused or overprivileged accounts
Accounts that are no longer in use or have more access than needed should be removed or downgraded. This is where risk reduction happens in practice.
Activity logs for audit and anomaly detection
Review account activity to validate that privileges are being used appropriately. Logs help spot suspicious behavior and provide evidence during internal or external audits.
How to Build a Repeatable Review Process
Even the most thorough access review won’t matter if it’s a one-time effort. To strengthen your security posture over time, the review process itself needs to be consistent, repeatable, and scalable.
Here’s how to make that happen:
Assign ownership and cross-functional responsibility: Designate a clear owner for the review process, and involve key teams like IT, HR, and Security. Access decisions often span departments, so shared accountability is essential.
Use policy-based reviews, not just manual checks: Automate wherever possible by defining access policies tied to roles, departments, or systems. This reduces human error and makes reviews faster and more objective.
Document and act on review findings: Don’t just flag issues, fix them. Track what was reviewed, what actions were taken, and who approved them. This creates a paper trail that supports compliance and future audits.
Establish a feedback loop to improve the process: After each cycle, assess what worked and what didn’t. Then, use those insights to refine your approach and stay aligned with evolving risks and business needs.
Final Thoughts
Unchecked access is one of the most persistent and overlooked risks in enterprise environments. Privileged access reviews help CISOs close those gaps by putting structure around who has access, why they have it, and whether it still makes sense.
When done quarterly, these reviews become a powerful tool for reducing insider threats, limiting unnecessary exposure, and supporting technical audit readiness.
To learn how our team helps organizations build strong, audit-ready PAM programs, check out our cybersecurity audit solutions on our website.
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