Use cases
- Cloud services have expanded faster than access governance or documentation.
- Multiple SaaS platforms contain business-critical or client data.
- External guests, contractors, vendors, or integrations have persistent access.
- A cloud migration or major platform change is planned.
Review surface
- Administrative roles and privileged access
- External sharing, guest access, and publicly exposed resources
- SaaS integrations, connected applications, and vendor access
- Logging, alerting, recovery ownership, and security-relevant retention settings
- Offboarding, stale access, and control ownership
Method
01Identify systems that matter most to operations and data sensitivity.
02Map administrators, owners, external access, and major integrations.
03Review security controls against the agreed environment and business context.
04Prioritize identity, sharing, recovery, and visibility gaps before lower-impact configuration issues.
Deliverables
- Cloud and SaaS exposure summary
- Administrative-access findings
- Sharing and external-access observations
- Recovery and ownership recommendations
- Prioritized remediation plan
Practice context
Cloud reviews are anchored in Technical Assessments & Defensive Engineering, with IAM, incident, monitoring, or GRC input added when the control path crosses those functions.
Illustrative finding — not client data
Area
SaaS access
Observation
External guest access persists after the original project and no owner is assigned to review it.
Consequence
Data access can outlive the business reason that originally justified it.
Example action
Assign an access owner, establish review intervals, and remove or re-authorize stale guest access.
Scope
Engagement boundary
Cloud services vary significantly. The exact platforms, tenancy, administrative access, and evidence available are confirmed during scoping.