Identity Sprawl: Managing Identity Proliferation in SaaS Ecosystems

For every employee in your organization, there exists 10-15 different SaaS accounts, each with unique permission structures and security configurations. Then there’s vendor and contractor accounts, offboarding, and role changes; adding to identity management complexities.

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As vendor's continuously update their apps with new features, configurations change, making it difficult for Security to keep up with best practices.

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And let's not forget non-human identities, like apps with OAuth permissions and service accounts, with access to your SaaS apps.

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This creates a growing phenomenon: SaaS identity sprawl.

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What is SaaS Identity Sprawl?

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SaaS identity sprawl refers to the unchecked proliferation of user identities, access permissions, and authentication credentials across an organization's growing SaaS ecosystem. This phenomenon occurs as companies adopt more SaaS apps, each requiring separate user accounts, role definitions, and access controls. The result is a complex web of identities that becomes increasingly difficult to manage, track, and secure.

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Key aspects of SaaS identity sprawl include:

Multiplication of user accounts across dozens or hundreds of SaaS platforms
Inconsistent permission structures between different applications
Orphaned accounts that remain active after employees leave
Excessive privileges that accumulate over time ("privilege creep")
Fragmented visibility into who has access to what data
Inconsistent security requirements (such as MFA) across different services
Difficulties maintaining the principle of least privilege
Challenges with onboarding/offboarding employees across all systems

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This identity sprawl creates significant security risks, as each dormant account, excessive permission, or poorly secured credential represents a potential entry point for attackers.

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And there may be more types of SaaS identities than you think.

What are the Types of SaaS Identities?

SaaS identities consist of more than human identities. Here are some examples of the types of identities that proliferate in SaaS environments:

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Human Identities

Employee accounts serve as the primary human identity type in most organizations, representing staff members who require access to various SaaS applications to perform their daily work functions.
Contractor and vendor accounts provide temporary or limited access to external human collaborators who need to interact with your SaaS environments for specific projects or ongoing support functions.
Customer/end-user accounts provide external users with limited access to specific portions of your SaaS environment.
Administrative accounts possess elevated privileges for system configuration and management. These are prime targets for hackers because of their extensive access rights.
Customer support accounts, provided by some SaaS vendors, exist to provide backdoor support for customers, but they are a security issue because they are not owned by the customer and usually have elevated privileges. (See US Treasury Department breach)
Emergency access/break-glass accounts provide rarely-used but critical access paths for disaster recovery scenarios, requiring specialized management protocols to prevent misuse while ensuring availability.

Non-Human Identities

Service accounts operate without direct human interaction, often managing background processes, scheduled tasks, or system-to-system communications within your SaaS ecosystem.
API integration accounts enable programmatic connections between different SaaS platforms through authentication tokens, allowing automated data exchange and workflow orchestration across your technology stack.
Bot users perform automated tasks within SaaS applications, ranging from simple data entry to complex workflow automation, often requiring persistent authentication to maintain operations.
Partner integration accounts establish secure connections with third-party organizations' systems, enabling business processes that span organizational boundaries while maintaining appropriate access controls.
AI agent accounts are an emerging category of non-human identities that require access privileges to analyze data, make decisions, and take actions within your SaaS applications.

Common SaaS Identity Risks

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Having covered the major SaaS identities, let's walk through some of the more common SaaS identity security risks and misconfigurations.

Dormant/inactive accounts: when former employees retain access privileges this creates significant security vulnerabilities. Worse, unused accounts often accumulate across systems, expanding the attack surface in the absence of proper oversight.
Underutilized accounts represent unnecessary access points that increase security risks without providing proportional business value.
Overpermissioned accounts grant excessive system access beyond what users need for their roles, potentially exposing confidential information to unauthorized parties. This is especially dangerous in the case of compromised administrative accounts (about which more in a moment), and for support accounts, which are often able to access vital business systems and sensitive data.
Excessive admin accounts are a special category of ‘overpermissioned accounts,’ because their extraordinary privileges make them attractive targets for attackers. These accounts can be manipulated into resetting authentication for critical users, thus giving attackers complete control over an organization's entire SaaS environment.
Weak authentication mechanisms critical vulnerabilities across SaaS environments. Failing to enforce multi-factor authentication means that stolen credentials can easily lead to compromises. Legacy protocols such as POP, IMAP, and SMTP – popular in widely-used environments like Microsoft 365 – lack support for modern authentication standards, and must be handled carefully.
Interactive usage of service accounts refers to when an application or service uses a service account to log in interactively (like a user) to a system, potentially leading to security risks like privilege misuse and credential theft.

These identity vulnerabilities represent significant risks to your organization's security posture, but they can be systematically addressed through structured approaches to identity management.

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Best Practices for SaaS Identity Management

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Managing identity sprawl across a SaaS ecosystem has emerged as a requirement for maintaining a robust security posture. Because organizations rely more and more on cloud-based applications, the proliferation of user accounts, access rights, and points of integration creates a bevy of security issues only addressable with a structured, disciplined approach.

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We’re here to help you with that. Below, you’ll find best practices that provide a jumping-off point for organizations seeking to systematically address identity management vulnerabilities across the board.

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Deploy an Identity and Access Management Solution

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Identity providers (IdP) like Okta and Entra can help reduce identity sprawl by reducing the number of credentials users need to manage. By enabling access to multiple applications with one set of credentials and enforcing single-sign on (SSO), organizations can reduce the attack surface by minimizing identities.

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Perform an Integrations Audit

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Start by documenting all authorized OAuth connections, API integrations, and native app connectors in your apps. For each connection, assess what data is being shared, whether appropriate permissions are in place, and if the integration still serves a legitimate business purpose.

Pay special attention to high-risk integrations where sensitive data flows to applications with weaker security controls or third parties with unclear data handling practices. Establish a regular cadence for these audits, as new integrations emerge constantly as users seek to streamline workflows.

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Practice Role-based Access

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Implement role-based access control (RBAC) across your SaaS ecosystem to minimize unnecessary privileges and reduce your attack surface. Define clear roles that match specific job functions, then assign only the permissions needed for each role. Regularly audit these roles to prevent privilege creep and ensure departing employees don't retain access.

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Practice Least-privilege Access

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The "least-privilege access" principle complements RBAC by ensuring each role receives only the minimum permissions necessary to perform its functions. Besides reducing the attack surface, least-privilege access stifles malware propagation, helps contain security breaches, and minimizes insider threats.

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Start by auditing current permission levels, identifying excessive privileges, and editing or removing risky privileges. Establish approval workflows for privilege escalation, ensuring temporary access is automatically revoked when no longer needed. Regularly review permissions during role changes.

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MFA All the Way

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Implement multi-factor authentication across your entire SaaS portfolio to create a critical security layer that password-based protection alone can't provide. Even when credentials are compromised, MFA significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access by requiring a second verification method. Enforce MFA for all users—including executives, contractors, and third-party vendors—with no exceptions. Monitor authentication failures to identify potential security issues before they escalate.

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Regularly Review and Adjust Permissions

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The fluid nature of modern organizations — where employees constantly join, change roles, and depart, and external collaborators engage for shorter stints — creates an ongoing security challenge you'll no doubt be familiar with. Permissions that were appropriate when first granted may become less so over time, meaning regular reviews are needed to address the accumulation of access rights that either a) no longer serve legitimate purposes, or b) have become potential threat vectors.

Monitor for Suspicious Behavior

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Effective SaaS security can’t be built on prevention alone. It also requires vigilant monitoring of any activities that may indicate a compromise. Implement comprehensive monitoring across your SaaS applications to track login patterns, requests for access, and changes to permissions. Establish clear baselines of normal user activity and configure automated alerts for deviations like unusual geographic logins, off-hours access attempts, or sudden spikes in data usage.

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Discover Shadow Apps

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Just as important as managing identities associated with approved apps is managing identities associated with shadow apps. Deploy a tool for shadow app discovery that can provide insight into users, authentication methods, and integrations. Unsanction and deprovision risky apps, and sanction and monitor the rest. Ensure accounts are configured with SSO and least privilege access. Minimize integrations and their permissions.

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How Reco Can Help You Manage SaaS Identity Sprawl

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Managing identities in complex, sprawling SaaS environments is enough to keep any security professional up at night. You're expected to:

Keep track of every employee’s access manually.
Trust that offboarding processes are always flawless.
Hope that no old credentials are left active.

Instead of managing SaaS identities by frantically auditing individual apps, Reco can help your organization make this simpler. Get arms around SaaS identities sprawl by:

Identity mapping: consolidate identities from multiple SaaS applications so you can track and manage employee access from a single console
Full SaaS visibility: gain visibility into identity issues, like overprivileged roles, inactive accounts, and excessive admins
Shadow app discovery: identify all SaaS applications in your environment, including shadow IT and unsanctioned apps, and listing who is using them, when, and how they’re authenticating
SSO and MFA validation: gain visibility into which identities are configured with SSO and MFA so you can increase adoption and track progress.
SaaS-to-SaaS identities: detect SaaS-to-SaaS connections and AI tools and understand what access permissions they have
Automated access reviews: identify excessive user permissions and unused accounts across SaaS applications in an automated cadence.
Identity threat detection and response: alert on suspicious identity-related activities like unusual file sharing or data access that may signify a malicious insider or compromised account

Customer Testimonial: BigID

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“When we deployed Reco, a big “Aha” for us was all the residual identities in SaaS. Things like stale identities and dormant accounts can accumulate over the years. We realized we didn’t have processes for addressing change management and Reco was the catalyst that pushed us to fill in those gaps and validate our progress within the platform.”

– Kyle Kurdziolek, VP of Security, BigID

Read the Full Case Study

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Learn More About Reco Today

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If SaaS identity sprawl is keeping you up at night, or you just want to figure out what you don’t know, reach out for a free assessment. Schedule a demo today or contact us at info@reco.ai.

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