How a Fortune 50 Automotive Leader Modernized Privileged Access with SGNL

Editor's note: This customer deployed SGNL prior to its acquisition by CrowdStrike. SGNL's continuous authorization and identity orchestration capabilities are now part of CrowdStrike Falcon® Next-Gen Identity Security.

A Fortune 50 automotive manufacturer modernized privileged access across its multicloud environment by replacing slow, manual approval processes with SGNL, which delivers policy-driven, context-aware authorization.

The company, which operates across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, had made zero trust a strategic priority. However, its existing privileged access management (PAM) platform had become a barrier to that vision. It relied on manual workflows that slowed operations and didn’t give security teams the real-time context needed to make informed access decisions.

Its adoption of SGNL accelerated privileged access from minutes to seconds, eliminated manual approval bottlenecks, and created a scalable foundation for zero standing privilege and continuous identity. Today, the company is building a more adaptive identity security program that continuously evaluates access decisions as business and security conditions change.

As the company expanded its cloud footprint across multiple providers, managing privileged access became increasingly complex. Security teams wanted to reduce standing privilege and automate access decisions without slowing employees responsible for supporting critical business systems.

Its existing privileged access solution could not keep pace. Every privileged access request depended on manual submissions, reviews, and approvals that could take hours to complete. Although employees were required to submit change requests before receiving privileged access, approvers still had to manually verify that requests were legitimate and properly assigned. The process created operational delays and increased opportunities for human error.

The company's zero trust strategy required security teams to evaluate additional context before granting privileged access. They wanted to verify factors such as business justification, identity attributes, and user security posture in real time, but their existing platform could not incorporate those signals into automated authorization decisions.

The result was an environment where delayed approvals slowed incident response, manual processes created operational inefficiencies, and standing privileges unnecessarily expanded the attack surface. Security leaders concluded they needed a modern authorization platform capable of continuously evaluating identity and business context before granting access.

The company evaluated several privileged access solutions while defining the future of its identity security program.

Cloud-native architecture, automation, and real-time policy enforcement were among the organization's highest priorities. Rather than continuing to depend on static permissions and manual approvals, the team wanted authorization decisions to incorporate live signals from across its identity, IT service management, and security environments.

After a competitive evaluation, the company selected SGNL because of its ability to integrate identity, security, and operational data into a single authorization workflow. Today, those capabilities are part of Falcon Next-Gen Identity Security.

A three-week proof of value demonstrated that the platform could integrate with the company's existing technology ecosystem, including Microsoft Entra ID, ServiceNow, SailPoint, Jira, Salesforce, and CrowdStrike. More importantly, it showed access policies could automatically evaluate real-time business justification and user risk before granting privileged access.

The POV also demonstrated the organization's vision of replacing manual approval processes with policy-driven authorization that adapts dynamically as business conditions change.

Following the successful evaluation, the company moved forward with its modernization initiative to replace manual privileged access workflows.

Instead of relying on approvers to manually validate tickets and user eligibility, authorization policies now automatically evaluate identity, business, and security context before granting access. Security teams can verify approved work requests alongside real-time security signals, allowing privileged access decisions to occur in seconds.

The automated approach significantly reduces operational friction while improving consistency across privileged access decisions. Security teams gain immediate visibility into authorization activity through automated notifications and comprehensive audit records, which improves oversight while reducing administrative effort.

The new architecture supports privileged access across the organization's cloud environments and provides the flexibility to incorporate additional identity and security signals as requirements evolve. By replacing manual workflows with policy-driven automation, the company has improved both operational efficiency and its overall security posture.

Modernizing privileged access marked an important milestone in the company's broader zero trust strategy.

The organization plans to continue expanding policy-driven authorization across its cloud infrastructure, reducing standing privilege, and increasing automation throughout its identity operations. Expected efficiencies from retiring manual approval processes across privileged access management and identity governance workflows also strengthened the business case for continued investment.

What began as an effort to modernize privileged access has evolved into a broader identity transformation initiative. The company is building a more adaptive security model capable of keeping pace with both business growth and an evolving threat landscape.