It’s easy to get distracted by complex threats and evolving attack vectors. But often, the biggest SaaS security risks are the simplest to fix. One of the most overlooked vulnerabilities in SaaS environments is also one of the easiest to address: inactive users with admin-level access.

According to data from AppOmni’s 2025 State of SaaS Security Report, admin-level or otherwise over-privileged access issues account for about 4 in every 10 SaaS security incidents (41 %), and 75% of organizations report some sort of SaaS breach in the last year.

These risks linger quietly in the background. These inactive admins don’t show up in daily activity logs, they’re rarely noticed in quarterly access reviews, and they often escape scrutiny during broader security audits. But make no mistake, these dormant identities are among the most dangerous visibility gaps in your SaaS estate.

The unseen security gap lurking in stale access

SaaS is now the operating system of the modern enterprise, which creates sprawling identity footprints across dozens of applications. But user lifecycle management hasn’t kept pace. Employees leave, shift roles, or stop using certain apps, and yet their accounts often remain active, especially when there’s no centralized visibility into access across systems.

This results in a classic security gap: user accounts that haven’t been touched in months, but still have privileged access to sensitive data, admin functions, or system-wide configuration settings. These accounts aren’t monitored, they’re not being used for legitimate business activity, and they’re rarely cleaned up unless someone notices them by accident.

From an attacker’s perspective, these accounts are a dream. They offer elevated access without triggering typical usage alerts. And because they aren’t associated with ongoing activity, they’re less likely to be tied to a specific business stakeholder who would catch unexpected behavior.

How dormant admins contribute to SaaS vulnerabilities

Dormant admin accounts aren’t just a hygiene issue; they represent real and immediate SaaS vulnerabilities. These accounts can serve as footholds for lateral movement, give attackers access to sensitive customer or corporate data, or allow misconfigurations to go unnoticed.

What makes this risk so frustrating is how preventable it is. In most cases, the problem isn’t due to neglect or incompetence; it’s due to a lack of visibility. When identity data is fragmented across dozens of SaaS tools, it becomes nearly impossible to track which users are still active, which roles they hold, and which permissions they still retain.

When that data isn’t normalized or mapped back to a central corporate identity, it’s even harder to know if a user who hasn’t logged into Salesforce in 90 days is still active in Okta—or if they’ve quietly left the company three months ago.

How to surface and eliminate hidden access SaaS security risks

Step 1: Do your due diligence

The first step in closing this SaaS security risk gap is to identify users who haven’t logged in recently but still hold elevated access. A typical threshold might be 30 or 60 days of inactivity — long enough to indicate disuse, but short enough to catch potential issues before they become real threats.

From there, organizations should examine how many SaaS apps each user is connected to. A user with access to a single low-risk tool might not warrant urgent action. But a user who hasn’t logged in for two months and still has admin rights across five different apps? That’s a high-priority cleanup candidate.This kind of analysis is part of good SaaS due diligence. Teams need to understand not just who has access, but why, and whether that access is still justified. It helps reinforce principles of least privilege, ensures alignment with compliance requirements, and reduces the risk of privilege escalation through forgotten or unused accounts.

Step 2: Move from insight to action

Once you’ve identified inactive admins, the next step is to remediate. Depending on business context, this could mean revoking access entirely, requiring multi-factor authentication before re-entry, or routing accounts for further review by app owners or security teams. In many cases, you can also reduce licensing costs by eliminating unused accounts, particularly in environments where per-seat pricing is significant.

These actions don’t just tighten security, they also streamline IT operations and create clear audit trails for compliance. Since these accounts are inactive, most cleanups can be done with minimal disruption to end users.

👉 Need a broader SaaS security risk framework? Check out the eBook: SaaS Made Simple for how to build a solid business case, select the best SSPM vendor, and implement effective protection for your SaaS apps—all before a breach forces your hand.

Step 3: Use a solution like AppOmni to help mitigate these SaaS security risks

While this process is simple in theory, it’s often difficult to execute without the right tooling. That’s where AppOmni can help. AppOmni gives you unified, normalized visibility into every identity across your SaaS stack, showing you who has access, what they can do, when they last logged in, and how many apps they touch.

With a few clicks, you can filter down to users with admin-level permissions who haven’t logged in for 30, 60, or 90 days. You can sort those users by the number of apps they’re tied to, drill into individual profiles to understand exactly what access remains, and share findings with app owners or security teams to kick off access reviews. You can also export identity data or send it downstream to IAM systems to drive automated cleanup.

Whether you’re preparing for an access certification cycle, enforcing “use it or lose it” policies, or simply reducing your attack surface, AppOmni gives you the clarity and control you need to eliminate dormant, high-risk access quickly and at scale.

Want to find and fix security gaps in your SaaS environment?
Request a demo or check out the rest of our SaaS Security Slice series for more practical, actionable guidance.