Access Control Security

Access control failures rarely announce themselves — an over-permissioned service account, a role inherited from a template months ago, an MFA exception granted "temporarily" and never revoked. We find the access paths attackers would actually use to move from a low-privilege foothold to the data that matters.

Why Access Control Keeps Failing Quietly

Access sprawls faster than anyone reviews it: new hires get roles copied from a teammate "to save time," contractors keep access after engagements end, and service accounts accumulate permissions no one remembers granting. None of this looks broken in a compliance checklist — until someone tests whether it's actually enforced.

What We Test

• Privilege escalation paths — how a low-privilege account (or a compromised one) can reach admin-level access through misconfigured roles or inherited permissions.
• MFA enforcement gaps — exceptions, legacy authentication paths, and break-glass accounts that quietly bypass multi-factor requirements.
• Least-privilege violations — accounts and service identities holding far more access than their actual function requires.
• Stale and orphaned access — former employees, expired contractors, and decommissioned service accounts that still have live credentials.
• Role and permission misconfigurations across cloud IAM, SaaS admin consoles, and internal applications.

Built Into Continuous Coverage

Access control findings feed directly into Attack Surface Management and Vendor Risk Assessment, since a vendor or forgotten account with excessive access is one of the most common ways attackers actually move laterally once inside. Evidence maps directly to SOC 2 and ISO 27001 access control requirements through Alastor Shield.

Who Needs This

Any organization managing more than a handful of employee, contractor, and service accounts — which is nearly every company past its first few hires — benefits from a periodic, adversarial review of who can actually reach what, rather than trusting that provisioning was done correctly and never revisited.

Talk to our team about testing your access control posture before an attacker does.