Microsoft’s 2024 State of Multicloud Security Risk Report found that only 2% of cloud permissions are actually used. The other 98% sat idle — unnecessary, unreviewed, and quietly increasing risk.
This is a pattern most cloud teams recognize: when a new workload is being deployed, cloud engineers often cannot predict exactly which permissions will be required on day one. At the same time, the workload is expected to be running immediately. Under that pressure, the fastest path is usually to grant broad access first and plan to reduce it later. The problem is that the "later" rarely comes.
Over time, this creates an accumulation of overprovisioned identities across the environment. As more workloads, service accounts, roles, and automation tools are introduced, excessive permissions become the default rather than the exception. That significantly increases risk. When an overprivileged identity is compromised, an attacker gains far more access and capability than they would have if the identity had been limited to only the permissions it truly needed.
The CyberArk 2025 State of Machine Identity Security Report reinforces this: 50% of organizations experienced security incidents related to compromised non-human identities in the past year.
Teriam is built to solve this problem continuously, not just periodically.
Teriam implements continuous permission monitoring across cloud environments and gives organizations full visibility into the access level of every cloud identity. It identifies overprovisioned identities, analyzes which permissions are actually being used, and provides clear, evidence-based recommendations for reducing access safely. Where automation is appropriate, Teriam can also automate remediation — helping teams move from broad initial access and quick startup to properly rightsized permissions that correct the “I’ll fix it later” problem.
What Teriam provides
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Continuous permissions monitoring
Teriam continuously evaluates identity activity and permission usage across the cloud environment.
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Full visibility into identity access
Security and Cloud teams can see which identities have broad access, which permissions are being used, and where risk is building.
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Detection of overprovisioned identities
Teriam identifies identities with significantly more access than their actual workload requires.
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Rightsizing recommendations
Teriam recommends reduced permissions sets based on observed usage, making least privilege more practical and evidence-based.
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Automatic remediation
When allowed by policy, Teriam automates permissions reduction and other remediation steps.
Business value
With Teriam, organizations no longer need to rely on manual scripts, one-time cleanup efforts, or infrequent annual assessments to understand cloud access risk. Companies also get a continuous process for identifying and reducing overprovisioned access — lowering risk from compromised identities, reducing attack surface, and freeing DevOps and security teams from repetitive manual work. Teriam turns permission rightsizing from a neglected manual task into an ongoing cloud security discipline.