Why Every Security Principal Manager Should Use Squarum for User Access Reviews — Especially in the Age of AI and HIPAA
In today’s enterprise environment, identity has become the new security perimeter. Employees, contractors, service accounts, and increasingly AI agents all require access to business systems. For Security Principal Managers responsible for identity governance, the challenge is clear: ensuring that the right identities have the right access — and nothing more. This is where modern User Access Review (UAR) platforms like Squarum become essential.
Release Notes
Squarum updates the service regularly with product improvements and bug fixes. In this document you will find all the latest releases.
User Access Reviews – Why Excel Fails at Collaboration
User access reviews are rarely a one-person task. In most organizations, several roles are involved in the process. One person may create the review, another is responsible as the application owner, and a third person performs the actual review of the access rights. Coordination between these roles is essential to ensure that reviews are completed correctly and on time. This is one of the areas where Excel quickly reaches its limits.
Why Security Leaders Use Squarum for User Access Reviews When Nothing Else Exists
User Access Reviews (UAR) are a fundamental responsibility for Principal Security Engineers, Security Managers, and GRC professionals. In theory, organizations should have integrated identity governance tools that automate these reviews. In practice, many companies simply don’t.
From “Audit Dread” to “Audit Ready”: How Squarum Streamlines Compliance
For many organizations, the word “audit” signals a multi-day—or even multi-week—scramble to gather evidence. Whether it’s for SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley), ISO 27001, or the new NIS 2 directive, the core requirement remains the same: proving that only the right people have access to the right data.
Compliance as a Catalyst – Beyond Security to SaaS Cost Savings
For many business leaders, access reviews are seen purely through the lens of compliance—a “check-the-box” activity for SOX or the new European NIS 2 directive. However, the case study with one of our customers reveals that modern access governance through a platform like Squarum is actually one of the most effective tools for financial optimization.
Best 3 free User Access Review Tools 2026
Finding the right way to manage user access is often a “Goldilocks” problem: some tools are too manual, some are too complex, and only one feels just right.
Whether you’re prepping for a SOC2 audit or just trying to keep your data secure, here are the top 3 tools for User Access Reviews (UAR) in 2026.
The High Cost of “Manual” Security – Why Your Spreadsheet-Based Access Reviews Are Failing
In the world of IT security and compliance, the term “access review” often conjures images of endless spreadsheets, frantic emails, and “rubber-stamping” by overwhelmed managers. For many organizations, the reality of manual Excel-based access reviews is a process that is slow, error-prone, and fundamentally unscalable.
Benefits of a Unified Access Review Process
Think of having twenty critical apps and doing quarterly reviews of each app users and their level of access with Excel and Sharepoint. That makes eighty access reviews to run yearly with a tool not optimized for doing the job.
Which Laws and Certifications Require User Access Reviews (UAR)
Conducting regular User Access Reviews (UAR) has become a key element of IT and data security in many laws and standards. Below we examine three major frameworks: the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), ISO 27001, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).