Access Drift
Find where actual access no longer matches what was approved, classified by severity, assigned to a workflow, and resolved with a full evidence trail.
Access drift is the gap your periodic reviews are too slow to catch.
Every role change, promotion, team transfer, contractor extension, and SaaS seat that is not explicitly deprovisioned widens the gap between what your policy says and what your directories actually contain. These gaps are not caused by attack, they are caused by normal organizational change moving faster than your access review cadence. Each unclosed gap is an unauthorized privilege that exists outside any approved scope.
- ✓Drift accumulates between review cycles, reviews find it too late
- ✓SaaS platforms, cloud IAM, and on-premises directories all drift independently
- ✓Privileged drift, admin roles assigned without policy basis, creates the highest risk
- ✓Auditors treat undocumented access as a finding even if no harm occurred
The governed approach
Continuous Access Observation
Nuxari connectors continuously pull observed access state from every connected environment. There is no waiting for a scheduled review, drift is detected as it occurs.
Approved vs Observed Comparison
The observed state is compared against the approved baseline. Every gap becomes a finding, linked to the specific user, role, and system where the drift occurred.
Severity Classification
Findings are classified as Critical, High, Medium, or Low based on the nature of the drift, the privilege level involved, and the sensitivity of the affected system.
Approval-Gated Remediation Routing
Each finding routes to a remediation workflow. Every remediation action requires approval before it executes, no access change runs without an authorization record.
Evidence Capture
Finding, approval, execution, validation, each step generates a signed, timestamped evidence record mapped to the control objective it satisfies.
Drift Trend Reporting
Track whether drift is increasing or decreasing over time, by environment and by severity band, so you can show governance trajectory to leadership.
Drift is not a single event. It accumulates silently. Nuxari makes the difference visible, continuously.
How the lifecycle runs
- 01Connectors collect observed access stateNuxari pulls current user accounts, group memberships, role assignments, and access configurations from every connected system on a continuous schedule.
- 02Observed state is compared to the approved baselineEach observed access record is matched against the approved access baseline. Records that exist in observed state but not in the approved baseline are flagged as drift.
- 03Drift is surfaced as a classified findingThe gap is created as a finding, with severity, affected user, system, role, and the timestamp when the drift was first detected.
- 04Finding routes to remediation workflowAn operator reviews the finding and submits a remediation workflow, specifying what should be changed, when, and who approves it.
- 05Remediation is approved and executedThe approver reviews the remediation scope and grants authorization. The action executes, and execution is logged with a system confirmation.
- 06Validation confirms the changeAfter execution, Nuxari re-evaluates the finding. If the drift is resolved, the finding is closed. If not, a follow-up workflow is triggered.
- 07Evidence bundle is assembledFinding, approval, execution, and validation are assembled into a signed evidence bundle linked to the control objective.
Admin role assigned outside approval, detected 47 days later
A user's role in Entra ID was escalated from User Administrator to Global Administrator without going through the approved provisioning workflow. Nuxari detected the drift on the next observation cycle.
Illustrative example. Not real customer data.
- 01Entra ID connector pulls observed roles, Global Administrator found for s.krishna@example.com
- 02Comparison against approved baseline: approved role is User Administrator
- 03Finding NX-4821 created, Critical severity, MFA not enforced on the account
- 04Operator reviews finding, submits remediation: role downgrade + MFA enforcement
- 05IT Manager reviews and approves the remediation workflow
- 06Role is downgraded; MFA enforcement policy is applied via Entra ID
- 07Validation: observed role re-checked, User Administrator confirmed
- 08Evidence bundle assembled: finding, approval, execution, validation, control mapping
Evidence produced
- Drift finding record: user, role, system, severity, detection timestamp
- Approved baseline snapshot used for comparison
- Remediation workflow document with scope and approval chain
- Approval record: approver identity, timestamp, authorized scope
- Execution log with per-step status and system confirmation
- Validation result: re-observed state confirming drift is resolved
- Control-mapped evidence bundle exportable as PDF or JSON
Build the operating layer
for governance work.
See how Nuxari Ops reduces manual IT work, eliminates access drift, and generates audit evidence automatically, across your entire enterprise.