User Access Reviews: A Step-by-Step Guide, Best Practices + Checklist

On November 11, 2021, an employee at South Georgia Medical Center clocked out for the last time. The next day, they used their still-active credentials to download patient data onto a USB drive, triggering a HIPAA breach, felony charges, and a security nightmare for the hospital. Over 40,000 patients were affected.

This is an all too familiar mess, and it’s not limited to the healthcare industry. According to Verizon's 2022 Data Breach Investigations Report, 82% of data breaches were caused by credential theft, phishing attacks, and employee misuse or mistakes. 

The uncomfortable truth is that countless data breaches stem from failing to manage who has access to what within your organization. The risks are everywhere, from former employees who still retain system access to current employees with excessive permissions and contractors whose temporary access never gets revoked.

The fix starts with user access reviews (UARs). In this article, we cover what access reviews are, why they matter, and how to run them effectively. We’ll also give you a checklist to streamline the process and protect your business from a common cause of data breaches: too much trust in the wrong hands.

What Are User Access Reviews?

A user access review is the process of checking who has access to your organization’s systems, what they can do with it, and whether that access is still needed. It helps you spot and remove unnecessary or risky permissions before they become a problem.

User access reviews answer four questions:

1. Who is accessing what systems and data?
2. What level of access do these users have?
3. Do these users have valid reasons for their access rights?
4. What updates need to be made to their access permissions?

A "user" in this context extends to anyone who interacts with your systems and data, each with different access needs:

• Employees include full-time, part-time, and temporary staff who need access to company resources to perform their job functions. It covers everyone from entry-level workers to executives.
• Business partners often need user access rights to collaborate on joint projects or shared platforms. Their access should be strictly limited to the systems or data necessary for the partnership, with formal agreements outlining how data is shared and how long access will be granted.
• Vendors, such as IT or cloud service providers, require access to keep your systems running smoothly. However, their access should be restricted to only the systems they need and monitored closely for any unusual activity.
• Contractors require temporary access to systems and data to complete their tasks, but only for a limited time. You want to grant them just enough access to do their jobs and revoke it as soon as their contract ends.
• Former employees represent one of the biggest insider threats when their access hasn't been properly revoked. Companies that fail to withdraw access immediately after employees leave create significant security vulnerabilities.

Types of User Access Reviews

Organizations typically implement three types of access reviews:

1. Periodic access reviews: Scheduled at regular intervals (e.g., quarterly or annually), periodic reviews give you a broad view of who has access and whether that access still makes sense. They’re ideal for catching privilege creep and outdated access across the organization.
2. Event-driven access reviews: Happen in response to specific changes: someone joins, changes roles, switches departments, or leaves the company. 
3. Continuous access reviews: Powered by automation, continuous reviews happen in real-time. Instead of waiting for a scheduled review, systems track changes to access, flag unusual behavior, and alert you to risks as they happen. They're best for high-risk environments, privileged accounts, and fast-scaling teams.

Why are Access Reviews Important?

User access reviews are one of the simplest, most effective ways to reduce security risks. Let’s examine how they benefit your organization.

They Protect Sensitive Data

The most obvious yet arguably most important benefit is preventing unauthorized access to your sensitive data and assets. Access reviews reduce your attack surface and limit the potential damage from both insider threats and compromised credentials.

They Prevent Common Access Issues

If you don’t conduct regular reviews, access problems build up quietly. Over time, they create serious risks:

• Privilege creep occurs when an employee changes job roles within an organization and receives new privileges. It can happen naturally over time, where employees who have been with the organization a long time obtain access to more and more systems.
• Privilege misuse involves mishandling data or installing unapproved hardware or software.
• Privilege abuse happens when user accounts get used inappropriately or fraudulently—either maliciously, accidentally, or through willful ignorance of policies.

Many data breaches trace back to access that was never revoked or reviewed. Access reviews are how you catch these issues before they escalate.

They Help You Meet Compliance Requirements

Many standards, laws, and regulations include guidance for companies to implement user access measures within their organization. Strict regulatory standards govern many industries (think Europe's GDPR for data protection, HIPAA for healthcare, or PCI DSS for payment card information).

Auditors want to see proof, and that includes documented access reviews, evidence of changes made, and ownership over who’s responsible for access decisions. If you fail to review access regularly, you could potentially face audit exceptions, fines, and loss of certifications.

They Reduce Software Costs

Many platforms charge by user, role, or access level. If your systems are full of dormant accounts or over-provisioned users, you’re likely overpaying. Access reviews help you:

• Identify unused or inactive accounts still tied to paid licenses.
• Spot roles with elevated permissions that trigger higher subscription tiers.
• Trim unnecessary access in third-party SaaS tools and internal systems.

As your company scales, license sprawl can turn into a silent cost center. Regular reviews give your IT and finance departments visibility into what’s actually being used, so they can right-size spend without disrupting teams.

What Standards, Laws, and Regulations Encourage User Access Reviews?

User access reviews are built into nearly every major compliance framework. We dig into a few common ones and how they handle user access reviews below, but you can also find a general overview in the following table: