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IAM is supposed to be the backbone of security, but when it comes to measuring its success, most organizations are flying blind.
We track login attempts, count how many users have MFA enabled, and run access reviews—but none of that tells us whether IAM is actually reducing risk, preventing breaches, or improving security posture.
If identity is so critical, why do we have so few meaningful metrics?
Let’s talk about why IAM measurement is broken—and how we can fix it.
The Problem: Measuring IAM Like an IT Project, Not a Security Function
Most IAM “metrics” today focus on activity, not security outcomes.
📊 Number of users onboarded – Cool, but did we onboard them securely?
📊 MFA adoption rate – Great, but is it stopping attacks?
📊 Access review completion rate – Awesome, but did anyone actually check if access was correct?
None of these metrics tell us if IAM is working—only that we’re doing things.
It’s like measuring a home security system by counting how many people lock their doors instead of tracking how many break-ins were prevented.
Sooo..what should we be measuring?
I’m so glad you asked.
If IAM is a security function, we need to track security outcomes. That means:
🚀 IAM Risk Reduction:
Percentage of accounts with excessive access (i.e., more permissions than needed).
Number of overprivileged accounts removed per quarter.
Time-to-remediate excessive permissions.
🚀 Identity-Based Attack Detection & Prevention:
Failed vs. successful authentication attempts across risky locations.
Number of access anomalies detected & resolved.
Percentage of blocked authentication attempts due to known threats.
🚀 IAM’s Impact on Business & Security:
Time to grant/revoke access (agility without compromising security).
Reduction in IAM-related incidents (compromised accounts, insider threats).
Correlation between IAM controls & security incidents (e.g., did MFA prevent an attack?).
Instead of tracking IAM activity, we need to track IAM effectiveness.
IAM Metrics Need to Connect to Security & Business Outcomes
The real problem? IAM data is often disconnected from security operations.
If IAM systems aren’t feeding risk signals into SIEMs, XDRs, or security analytics tools, then we can’t measure their impact. Similarly, if IAM teams aren’t aligning with business goals, then we’re just seen as an overhead function—not a security enabler.
We need IAM metrics that show:
✅ How identity reduces risk.
✅ How identity improves security.
✅ How identity enables the business.
IAM leaders need to stop celebrating vanity metrics and start focusing on real security and business outcomes. If we want CIDO ( Chief Identity Officer0 to become a reality one day, then we are going to need to be able to tell story around business impact, and that story is going to need data to back it up.
🚫 No more measuring “how many accounts we provisioned.”
✅ Start measuring how many security risks we removed.
🚫 No more tracking access reviews just to check a box.
✅ Start tracking how many overprivileged accounts we actually fixed.
🚫 No more IAM reports that security teams ignore.
✅ Start integrating IAM data with security operations.
IAM is too important not to measure correctly. It’s time we start acting like it.
What IAM metrics actually matter in your org? Anything I missed? Drop your thoughts in the comments!