In today’s dynamic organizations, keeping control over who has access to what isn’t easy. Systems multiply, people change roles, and cloud adoption accelerates — all while compliance demands tighten. Before long, your access landscape starts to drift.
Identity Drift happens when actual access in your environment no longer aligns with what your business expects. It creeps in through mergers, org changes, or even simple human error, and if left unchecked, it weakens your security posture.
The good news? You can catch and correct your Identity Drift before it becomes a problem. The key lies in building and maintaining a Roles Matrix, and Gathid makes that process not just achievable, but dynamically sustainable.
Why Organizations Need a Roles Matrix
A Roles Matrix provides a clear, consolidated view of which identities have access to which systems, and why. It’s the foundation of Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), helping teams simplify and secure access across complex, hybrid environments.
Organizations often turn to role modeling or role mining projects because they’re facing challenges such as:
- Organizational growth or restructuring
- Digital transformation initiatives
- Frequent role or responsibility changes
- Mergers, acquisitions, and divestments
- Compliance pressures
- Legacy system integrations
- Audit failures or security incidents
Keeping up with all these changes is nearly impossible. That’s where Gathid steps in.
Building a Roles Matrix — the Gathid Way
Gathid simplifies the entire process of building, validating, and maintaining a Roles Matrix. Here’s how it works:
1. Model, Visualize, and Interrogate Access
Gathid visually connects data from systems keeping its native complexity and depth. Linking Human and Non-Human Identities and their access to anything. Immediate visibility, without the risk.
Every 24 hours, Gathid generates a new dynamic and interactive Identity Graph that you can explore from any angle—role, department, system, account, or privilege—while automatically preserving a daily snapshot. This creates a living, time-stamped archive of your identity landscape, a “time machine” that lets you trace changes and investigate access history with ease.
2. Construct Your Role Matrix
For mature organizations Gathid enables the ability to import and overlay their existing role matrix for comparison and validation. For organizations starting (and restarting) to define their roles, Gathid’s Identity Graph provides the perfect platform for understanding and refining roles.
You can use Gathid to:
- Cleanse and de-duplicate identity data
- Identify typical and atypical access patterns
- Overlay organizational policies and controls such as dormant accounts, access creep and SoD violations
- Build or adjust your role expectations with confidence
3. Validate and Compare Daily
Once your Role Matrix is drafted, Gathid continuously validates it.
Each day, Gathid compares your expected access (from your Role Matrix) with your actual access (from your digital twin). Any deviations or anomalies are flagged immediately, giving you daily assurance that your access model matches reality.
4. Detect Change and Prevent Drift
Gathid automatically detects the events that typically cause Identity Drift, including:
- Employee transitions: onboardings, exits, and role changes
- Position title updates that may alter expected/actual access requirements
- New system integrations and access policy changes
- Unusual access changes that could indicate risk
When changes occur, they are reflected in your digital twin, alerts are sent to administrators, and or integrated with your ticketing system to maintain an audit trail. No more hidden drift. No more surprises.
5. Continuous Improvement and Compliance
Your organization isn’t static, and your Role Matrix shouldn’t be either.
Gathid continuously analyzes identity and access trends, helping you adapt to new structures, systems, and regulatory requirements without the manual effort.
With daily updates and automated checks, you can trust that your Roles Based Access Control (RBAC) (or Attribute-Based Access Control or eXtended-Based Access Control) framework stays compliant, accurate, and up to date.
The Benefits of Catching Identity Drift with Gathid
- Know Who Has Access to What – Simplify complex access structures and ensure everyone has exactly what they need, no more.
- See Ahead, Not Behind – Gathid predicts potential risk by analyzing what someone could do based on current access — not just what they’ve done.
- Retain Access History – Daily snapshots create a full audit trail of access changes for compliance and investigation.
- Reduce Friction – Fewer access tickets, faster decisions, and more confidence for IT and business users alike.
- Accelerate Large IAM Deployments – Jumpstart SailPoint and other enterprise IAM projects with a clear, daily view of roles, accounts, and entitlements to streamline configuration and validation.
- Automate Efficiency – Eliminate manual RBAC checks and minimize human error.
- Strengthen Security – Stop unauthorized access before it happens.
- Stay Audit-Ready – Meet compliance requirements with comprehensive access logs and history.
- Scale with Ease – Support growth, mergers, and restructuring effortlessly.
- Save Time and Money – Reduce operational costs by automating governance and catching drift early.
Stay Ahead of Identity Drift
Your organization changes every day. People join, systems evolve, and responsibilities shift. With Gathid’s Role Matrix and daily Identity Graph, you can stay aligned with those changes and ensure your access controls always reflect reality.
Relax. Gathid catches your Identity Drift before it catches you.
