Access Is the New Exposure: Why Knowing Who Can Reach Your Data Matters More Than Where It Lives

Cyera Research Labs contends that modern data risk is primarily created by identity-driven access propagation—residual OAuth/vendor access, nested group sprawl, link-based sharing, dormant identities with live entitlements, and AI assistants extending user permissions—rather than data location; it advocates for identity-aware access intelligence that maps identities-to-data across SaaS and cloud, detects entitlement anomalies, and orchestrates least-privilege remediation to uphold Zero Trust and compliance.