In today’s digital landscape, identity security has significantly evolved, expanding beyond the traditional capabilities of identity and access management and aligning more with cybersecurity strategies. Threat actors have also developed and capitalized on this evolution, leveraging identity and privilege as the most common means to breach an organization and cause disruption. They exploit every identity—human and non-human—that is susceptible to compromise if not properly secured. This leaves every identity across the organization at risk of potential compromise. If not properly secured, protected, and permissioned, it might become a pathway to other privileges and lead to further compromise within an organization. Embracing principles like Zero Trust while leveraging advanced technologies like AI and machine learning is considered imperative for effective identity protection. This is why identity security is no longer just an IAM problem—it is an organizational risk that, if not managed properly, could land in the hands of an attacker and provide them with the upper hand.
The Shift from Traditional Identity and Access Management
Gone are the days when IAM was the sole gatekeeper of identities. The online presence of identities has shifted cyber threats, and IAM tools alone aren’t enough to combat sophisticated attacks. This has led to a required shift in focus toward a more comprehensive identity security strategy. This shift has centered around identity-centric security, where the emphasis is on securing identities themselves rather than just managing access. It also recognizes that identities are now the perimeter in today’s hyperconnected digital world. By prioritizing identity security, organizations can better safeguard their sensitive data and systems against these threats.
The Intersection of Identity Security and Cybersecurity
Identity security and cybersecurity are no longer siloed concepts but intricately connected facets of a layered defense-in-depth strategy. Without strong identity security measures in place, cybersecurity efforts are inherently weakened, leaving organizations vulnerable to breaches, data theft, and compromise. Understanding the interdependency of these two areas is critical when it comes to building a resilient and cohesive least-privilege, defense-in-depth posture. By enhancing identity security measures, organizations can strengthen security at individual access points while improving overall cyber resiliency. The ability to secure identities at every facet of the organization—from employees and contractors to vendors and third parties—allows organizations to proactively mitigate identity risks and respond to potential threats. Having a strong identity security framework serves as a foundation for building a resilient cybersecurity ecosystem, especially when the framework considers all layers of the identity fabric. Identity security is the critical piece that should, more importantly, touch every layer of the identity fabric framework, from business personas to mitigating controls.
Embracing Zero Trust Principles for Enhanced Identity Protection
Most organizations should be embracing some form of Zero Trust principles—if they aren’t, they should be. Zero Trust is a proactive approach to fortifying identity protection in today’s threat landscape. This model operates on the assumption that no entity, whether internal or external to the network, should be trusted by default. By continuously verifying and validating identities, organizations can monitor access and respond effectively when anomalies occur. Implementing Zero Trust for identities involves a holistic approach, beginning with visibility, followed by strong authentication, continuous monitoring, and adherence to concepts like least privilege and just-in-time access, ensuring that no standing privileges exist that could be leveraged in a breach or compromise. By embracing these concepts, organizations can create secure environments where identities are constantly validated, and access is granted based on context and behavior.
Addressing the Challenges of Identity Security Beyond IAM
As digital ecosystems continue to grow, the scope of identity threats becomes buried under hidden layers of privilege, permissions, and entitlements. These hidden paths of privilege are often uncovered through phishing and social engineering attacks, where cybercriminals leverage these initial attacks as a foothold before pivoting to exploit privilege-related vulnerabilities, excessive access, and standing privileges. This often leads to administrative rights being compromised within organizations. Addressing this challenge requires a comprehensive strategy that goes beyond traditional IAM measures to safeguard all identities—human and non-human, on-premises and in the cloud, employees and vendors alike.
To complicate matters further, in this era of digital transformation, many organizations rely on non-traditional identity sources such as IoT devices, cloud services, critical infrastructure, and OT environments to conduct business. Integrating these sources into an identity security framework presents challenges regarding authentication and access control. If organizations expand the scope of identity security to encompass these sources, they can ensure a more resilient defense against modern and evolving threats. This is why visibility is so critical in understanding organizational risk when it comes to identities. Leveraging tools with AI and machine learning for advanced identity threat detection and response is crucial for organizations.
If you don’t know about it, how can you protect it? This is why advanced identity threat detection and response is becoming such a popular topic. It plays a critical role by analyzing vast amounts of data in real time to discover flaws, misconfigurations, behavioral anomalies, and awareness gaps regarding identities and identity security.
Collaboration and Integration: Key Strategies for Holistic Identity Security
Cross-functional collaboration is essential for holistic identity security. IAM teams can no longer be the only team responsible for the overall health of identity security in an organization. Instead, organizations must embrace collaboration by bringing together IT, security professionals, compliance officers, and business stakeholders to ensure not only a comprehensive approach but also a unified strategy for addressing identity-related risks. Collaboration and communication across departments are essential to maintaining a strong security posture related to identities. Ensuring alignment across these departments is critical for organizational security.
Final Thoughts
Many organizations need to think outside the box when addressing identity-related risks. They must recognize that they have outgrown the traditional IAM team management model as the sole authority for provisioning access and managing permissions. Instead, organizations must shift to a modern approach that includes other areas of the business beyond the IAM team. This includes additional integrations, participation from other business stakeholders, and a more robust strategy for proactively identifying identity-related risks. By responding to these risks in real time, organizations can better protect themselves from breaches and compromises.
