Access reviews for privileged roles: from box-ticking to audit-ready evidence
Almost every standard requires a periodic review of privileged access, and almost every organisation does it as a yearly spreadsheet. Entra ID offers a native mechanism that produces both the corrective action and the audit trail, provided it is configured properly.
What access reviews cover
Entra ID access reviews let you periodically revalidate group membership, application access, access package assignments and, through Privileged Identity Management, Entra ID and Azure roles. For privileged roles the feature requires Entra ID P2 or Entra ID Governance, and some advanced options are Governance-only. Licensing scope changes over time, so check it before committing.
Schedule without exhausting reviewers
A review that runs too often becomes a formality; one that runs too rarely leaves rights dormant for months. A common cadence is quarterly for the most sensitive roles (Global Administrator, Privileged Role Administrator, Privileged Authentication Administrator) and every six months for the rest. Settings to get right:
- duration: long enough to cover holidays, but rarely more than two or three weeks;
- fixed recurrence, so the review does not depend on someone remembering it;
- decision helpers: Entra ID can recommend denial for accounts with no recent sign-in.
Choose the right reviewers
Self-review, where each administrator confirms their own role, is tempting but carries little weight. Prefer named reviewers (security officer, CISO) or line managers, with a fallback reviewer if the first one does not respond. For the most critical roles, a multi-stage review can combine a manager's view with a security sign-off, subject to licensing.
Apply results automatically
A review whose decisions are never applied achieves nothing. Enable auto-apply results and define what happens if reviewers do not respond: keep access, remove it, or take the recommendations. For privileged roles, removal by default is often the most defensible choice, provided people have been warned and emergency accounts are excluded from the review.
Caution. Emergency access ("break-glass") accounts must never be removed automatically. Document their exclusion and control them another way, for example with an alert on every sign-in.
The evidence auditors expect
An ISO 27001 or NIS2 auditor will not settle for a screenshot of the configuration. They expect:
- the review definition (scope, frequency, reviewers);
- the history of completed instances, with response rates;
- individual decisions and their justifications;
- proof that denials were actually applied.
Review history can be exported from the Identity Governance area, giving you a dated, reproducible piece of evidence.
What an audit checks
- recurring reviews covering every highly privileged role;
- self-review is not the only mechanism;
- auto-apply results is enabled;
- recent instances were actually completed rather than expiring unanswered.