Overview
Regulatory Compliance in IAM ensures organizations meet legal and industry requirements for identity and access controls. This includes SOX for public companies (CEO/CFO personal liability), HIPAA for healthcare ($50K-$1.5M per violation), PCI-DSS for payment card data (card brand fines plus breach liability), GDPR for EU privacy (4% of global revenue), NIS2 for EU critical infrastructure, DORA for financial services, and industry-specific regulations. IAM is central to compliance—access control, audit trails, and segregation of duties are foundational requirements across frameworks.
Why It Matters
Non-compliance is existential risk: GDPR fines reached €4.7B in 2025, SOX violations carry personal liability for executives, and HIPAA breaches average $11M in total cost. Beyond fines, non-compliance damages customer trust, triggers lawsuits, and can result in business license revocation. Organizations spend an average of $5.5M annually on compliance—but the cost of non-compliance is 2.7x higher. IAM provides the controls, evidence, and automation that make compliance manageable.
Key Concepts
1Access Certification (Attestation)
Periodic review where managers and application owners certify that access is appropriate. Required by SOX (quarterly for SOX-critical systems), HIPAA, and PCI-DSS. Modern IGA enables risk-based and micro-certifications.
2Segregation of Duties (SoD)
Preventive and detective controls ensuring no single person can perform conflicting actions (e.g., create and approve payments). Key SOX control codified in SoD matrices with automated enforcement.
3Audit Trail
Tamper-evident, immutable log of all access events, changes, and approvals. Essential evidence for auditors. Must include who, what, when, where, and why with integrity protection.
4Data Subject Rights (DSR)
GDPR rights for individuals: access, rectification, erasure ('right to be forgotten'), portability, and objection. IAM must support DSR request workflows within 30-day deadline.
5Minimum Necessary / Least Privilege
HIPAA principle (§164.502(b)) that access to PHI should be limited to minimum necessary for the job function. Requires role-based access control and regular access reviews.
6Continuous Compliance
Shift from point-in-time audits to real-time compliance monitoring. Automated detection and remediation of policy violations, with continuous evidence collection.
7Control Mapping
Mapping organizational controls to multiple regulatory frameworks simultaneously. Enables 'audit once, comply many' approach.
Key Capabilities
- Access certification campaigns with risk-based scheduling
- Segregation of duties (SoD) enforcement and violation reporting
- Comprehensive audit trail and access logging
- Real-time compliance dashboards and reporting
- Automated policy enforcement and remediation
- Data privacy and consent management (GDPR)
- DSR request workflow automation
- Control framework mapping (SOX, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, GDPR)
- Compliance evidence export for auditors
Benefits
- 75% reduction in audit preparation time
- Avoid regulatory fines (GDPR up to 4% revenue, HIPAA $1.5M per violation)
- Continuous compliance evidence vs. point-in-time scramble
- 60% reduction in access-related security incidents
- Customer trust through demonstrated compliance
- Competitive advantage in regulated industries
- Reduced cyber insurance premiums
Common Challenges
Learning Path
Recommended learning sequence for Compliance
Understand Regulatory Landscape
Learn about SOX, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, GDPR and their IAM requirements
Master Access Certification
Learn to design and run effective access review campaigns
Implement SoD Controls
Design and enforce segregation of duties policies
Build Audit Capabilities
Implement comprehensive logging, reporting, and evidence collection