diff --git a/assets/model_monitoring/components/src/shared_utilities/io_utils.py b/assets/model_monitoring/components/src/shared_utilities/io_utils.py
index e330e6e8d1..5927b5406b 100644
--- a/assets/model_monitoring/components/src/shared_utilities/io_utils.py
+++ b/assets/model_monitoring/components/src/shared_utilities/io_utils.py
@@ -145,6 +145,10 @@ def read_mltable_in_spark(mltable_path: str):
     """Read mltable in spark."""
     if mltable_path is None:
         raise InvalidInputError("MLTable path is None.")
+    # validate if we can access the mltable, e.g. if env. is ready to access credential-less data
+    store_url = StoreUrl(mltable_path)
+    store_url.get_credential(True)  # will raise exception if not able to access
+
     spark = init_spark()
     try:
         return spark.read.mltable(mltable_path)