Identity is the new perimeter. Treat it like one.
IAM strategy and implementation: SSO consolidation, MFA enforcement, least-privilege access, joiners/movers/leavers automation, and conditional access — so your users can do their jobs and attackers cannot do yours.
Credentials are involved in more than 80% of breaches
The Verizon DBIR has reported that credential abuse is the leading cause of breaches for years running. The reason is not that companies ignore passwords; it is that SaaS sprawl has made consistent identity enforcement nearly impossible without deliberate tooling. A typical 50-person company runs 40 to 80 SaaS applications. Some use SSO. Many use local accounts with passwords that were set at onboarding and never touched again. When someone is promoted, changes roles, or leaves, those accounts rarely get updated the same day — or even the same week.
A single over-privileged admin account, compromised through phishing or a credential dump, can reach every SaaS tool that admin touched. The blast radius is determined not by what the attacker wants, but by what your access model allows. The cost of an IAM program is small compared to what a single over-privileged account incident costs in incident response, data exposure, and customer trust.
Signs you need this
- Former employees still have active accounts in one or more SaaS tools weeks after their last day
- Not all users are on MFA, or MFA is only enforced on some applications
- You do not have a clear inventory of which apps use SSO and which use local credentials
- Admin access is shared across multiple people, or admin accounts are used for day-to-day work
- Service accounts and API keys are not inventoried, rotated, or scoped to the minimum necessary permissions
- A compliance review or security questionnaire asked about your access review process and you had to improvise an answer
What the engagement delivers
We audit your current identity posture and deliver a concrete roadmap: what to consolidate, what to enforce, what to automate, and in what order. For clients who want more than a plan, we also implement — configuring your IdP, building the JML automation, and setting the conditional access policies that make the program real.
Audit and strategy
- IAM current-state audit: application inventory, SSO coverage, MFA status, privileged account map, and service account review
- Gap analysis against least-privilege and zero trust principles
- SSO consolidation plan across your IdP options (Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, JumpCloud, Google Workspace)
- Privileged access review: who has admin rights, where, and whether they need them
Implementation and automation
- MFA enforcement playbook: which apps, which MFA methods, and the rollout sequence that minimizes user disruption
- Joiners/movers/leavers automation: provisioning and deprovisioning workflows tied to your HR system of record
- Conditional access policies: device trust, location controls, and risk-based authentication rules
- Service account and API key governance: inventory, rotation schedules, and least-privilege scoping
How the engagement runs
An IAM audit and roadmap engagement runs 4 to 6 weeks. Full consolidation — implementing the IdP migration, JML automation, and conditional access policies — runs longer depending on the number of applications and the complexity of your HR integration. We scope the implementation work separately after the audit surfaces what needs to be done.
Engagement structure
- Discovery (weeks 1-2): application inventory, IdP review, MFA coverage audit, privileged access mapping, and service account enumeration
- Analysis and roadmap (weeks 3-4): gap analysis, consolidation plan, JML process design, and prioritized remediation roadmap
- Implementation (optional, weeks 5+): IdP configuration, MFA rollout, JML automation build, conditional access policy deployment
- Validation: access review at close to confirm the implementation matches the design
What we ask of you
- An IT lead or systems administrator who can pull current user lists, app integrations, and IdP configuration
- HR system access or an export of employee status to validate provisioning and deprovisioning timing
- A sponsor who can approve the MFA rollout schedule — user communication matters for adoption
- Honesty about shadow IT and apps that are not in the official inventory
Why a Red Hound IAM engagement
We have built IAM programs from scratch at companies with no IdP and 60 SaaS applications, and we have walked into programs that were in trouble — overly broad permissions, deprovisioning backlogs, and conditional access policies that blocked more legitimate users than attackers. Both situations are solvable with the right sequence of work. We know that sequence, and we do not tie our recommendation to any single vendor.
What makes us different
- Vendor-neutral. We support Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, JumpCloud, and Google Workspace. We recommend what fits your existing environment and budget, not whichever platform pays the highest referral margin.
- We implement, not just advise. If you want the work done and not just planned, we can configure the IdP, build the JML automation, and deploy the conditional access policies ourselves.
- Non-SaaS apps are not an afterthought. On-premises applications, VPNs, and legacy systems are included in the inventory and addressed in the consolidation plan.
- Service accounts get real attention. API keys and service accounts are the IAM gap most assessments miss. We inventory them, scope them, and build rotation into the program.
- Privileged access without breaking operations. Just-in-time access and break-glass procedures are designed to fit your team's actual working patterns, not copied from an enterprise playbook.
Frequently asked
Common questions before an IAM engagement. If yours is not here, the discovery call is the right place to ask it.
Which identity providers do you support?
We work with Okta, Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), JumpCloud, and Google Workspace as primary IdPs. If you are already on one of them, we configure and optimize. If you are choosing, we help you pick based on your application mix, budget, and where your workforce lives. We do not have a financial stake in which you choose.
Do you implement, or just advise?
Both, scoped to what you need. The audit and roadmap engagement is advisory. Implementation — IdP configuration, JML automation, conditional access policies — is a separate workstream we scope after the audit. Many clients do the audit first and implement with their own IT team using the roadmap we deliver. Others want us to do the full build. Either way works.
How do you handle applications that do not support SSO?
We inventory them separately and assess the options: some vendors offer SSO on higher-tier plans; others can be accessed through a credential vault; some are candidates for replacement. The goal is to reduce the number of unmanaged authentication paths, not to pretend every app supports SAML. We are direct about what is achievable versus aspirational.
What about service accounts and API keys?
They are included in the audit scope, not left as an exercise for later. We enumerate service accounts and API keys, map what they can access, check whether that access is still necessary, and design a rotation and monitoring program. This is one of the most commonly overlooked IAM risk areas in SMB environments.
How do you handle privileged access without disrupting operations?
Carefully. We design just-in-time access and break-glass procedures around your team's actual working patterns. The goal is that an admin who needs elevated access can get it in under two minutes, the access is time-bounded, and there is a log of who used it and why. We do not recommend controls that will be bypassed because they are too slow to use under pressure.
Get your identity story straight before an attacker does it for you.
A 30-minute discovery call, no obligation. We review where your access model stands today and tell you what a realistic IAM program looks like for your environment.