Identity inventory is the maintained record of user accounts, service accounts, roles, groups, tokens, and identity systems across an environment. It matters because organizations cannot govern, review, or secure access they do not know exists.
What is Identity Inventory?
Identity inventory is the practice of keeping a current, usable view of identities and their relationships across directories, SaaS platforms, cloud environments, endpoints, and applications. It helps teams understand who or what has access, where that access exists, and how it should be managed.
What Identity Inventory Commonly Includes
Common elements include human accounts, non-human identities, privileged roles, group memberships, federation relationships, application permissions, stale accounts, and ownership information.
Identity Inventory vs. Access Review
Identity inventory creates the visibility foundation. Access review uses that information to evaluate whether access should remain.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is identity inventory important?
Because shadow identity, stale access, and orphaned privileges are much harder to control without a reliable inventory.
How do teams improve identity inventory?
By integrating identity sources, assigning ownership, and continuously reconciling changes instead of relying on one-time snapshots.
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