As we enter the 2024 Identity Security Revolution in full effect, the Identity Security Revolution is reshaping the cybersecurity world in ways that haven’t been seen since. Recent high profile breaches of major companies like Microsoft, Okta, Cloudflare and Snowflake have brought to light some big holes in the traditional identity security system, and in The Past Some Days, large companies have been breached, including these. But due to these two instances, organizations are being driven now to null over how they are protecting identity and if there is a way of actually being really innovative and really adaptive to keeping up in this increasingly sophisticated cyber threat environment. At the core of this shift is the Identity Security Revolution — it’s a global movement to change how we think about protecting and securing identities as a business in the digital world.
At a time when the industry is at a critical crossroads, Permiso Security’s 2024 State of Identity Security Report comes at a time when industry challenges are clearly not insulated. Identity Security Revolution describes a world where new challenges require new ways of thinking and the forward technology and strategy to protect digital identities across all environments.
Thera of Cybersecurity in Uproar
As a string of breaches against giants of the tech world rocked the cybersecurity world – for the third time in a fortnight – that promise was beginning to crumble.. However, what these incidents have finally demonstrated is gaping holes in current identity security frameworks and put companies at far greater risk than they had realized. Both instances end being a wake up call to the fact that why we should have a complete overhaul of how we protect digital identity. This is the start of the revolution in identity security, and a new age in cybersecurity.
Once you have these breaches have become more frequent and more sophisticated you can’t keep relying on traditional identity security approaches. In the Identity Security Revolution, we propose a move to a more adaptive, context aware, and dynamic way of programming – shifting to systems that can dynamically change to the ever evolving threat landscape. We try to thwart such an attack surface using these modern identity security frameworks both for credential theft, phishing, lateral movement and escalation of privileges and so on.
Identity Security Paradigms Redefined
In short, a real Identity Security Revolution simply refers to how organizations are repositioning themselves around how they secure user identity. As businesses have focused on mechanisms such as provisioning and de provisioning for years now, one has been focusing on identifying with not much else beyond access control. But today’s complex digital ecosystems render these models insufficient. The Identity Security Revolution is a more holistic, full identity lifecycle approach to identity management that now brings the user and systems into many more conversations than before.
Obsolete access management concepts
Website Blindness and Conventional Wisdom
Most current popular views of identity security view identities as static entities, yet they ignore the fluid and dynamic nature of modern IT infrastructures. In practice users move between different systems, applications, and devices, changing identities all along the way. Instead we see **a new Identity Security Revolution** that recognizes the complexities and provides a larger picture of identity management.
The findings of this Permiso Security report show that organizations must abandon their old access management models and move to more adaptive ones. But that doesn’t include just the access rights of the user; in addition a user’s behavior, whether they’re located, under what circumstances they’re accessing the system, because they, too, need to be monitored and managed in real-time. This real time adaptability is the cornerstone of the Identity Security Revolution.
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Cybersecurity Concerns Increase
And the situation is really very serious, according to the 2024 report from Permiso Security. Despite claims from many organizations that they have plenty of security, and an almost inability to question the effectiveness of these tools against increasingly sophisticated identity based attack. In order to tackle these issues, the Identity Security Revolution is promoting greater adoption and development of AI powered technology that can detect and mitigate threats in real time.
Forty five percent of respondents said they were unsure they’d be able to repel identity attacks. This lack of confidence is the biggest indicator, time after time — traditional security tools just don’t have it anymore. To address this gap, we propose the Identity Security Revolution focused on more robust solutions targeting identity threats in a more robust fashion.
Takeaways from the Report
Context:
Each year, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics put out a report that covers what a dietitian or nutritionist ‘thinks’ is the ‘best’ diet for kids and adults (nutritional science division).
In the case that we have our version of 2024 State of Identity Security Report (to think about in terms of the Identity Security Revolution challenges and opportunities in line with), there are several contributions. The implications of these findings are that digital identities are more risky, and an accompanying strategy for protecting them is important now for organizations.
SaaS: New Frontier of Identity Risk
The report identifies one of the biggest trends that threatens identity security: the increasing contribution of Software as a Service as a major source of identity security risk. Nowadays, every modern business is forced to have SaaS applications in order to provide flexibility and scalability. Yet, at the cost of convenience, SaaS environments are susceptible to an identity based attack. The Identity Security Revolution is that today, we need security tuned to just the type of security problems SaaS environment has.
The cyber criminals can reach SaaS applications and they are very easy to reach, and thus becoming an attractive target for the cyber criminals. Over and above that, the act of provisioning and de provisioning users in a SaaS environment also introduces a different security issue. A further complexity to the security landscape is shadow IT (a) using unapproved SaaS Applications outside of ITs knowledge. Organizations must also partake in Identity Security Revolution and adopt stronger security controls in the form of identity and access management (IAM) solutions that can give visibility and control of SaaS environments.
Identity Management Challenges: Overconfidence vs. Reality
The report reveals a startling statistic: Over 3 out of 4 organization’s report to having 100 percent identity inventory control on all their environments. And it may sound good, but it’s actually pretty complicated. At some of these organizations, however, they overestimate what they can actually actually track and control within their ecosystems. Our Identity Security Revolution campaign focuses on this overconfidence, and asks businesses to be more critical over how they manage identity.
Hidden identities that occur in deactivated user accounts, limited duration permissions and shadow IT are often left unaccounted for by organizations. The biggest issue however with these managed identities is because they are more likely to become a victim of cybercriminals and allow him unauthorized access to sensitive data. To evolve Identity Security, Identity Security Revolution suggests there exists an urgent need to throw away the old fashioned approach to Identity Security (i.e. the ‘sprinkling of salt on top of the butter’) and take on board new technology, such as Identity analytics, powered by AI, that continues to monitor and assess risk profiles of all the identities within the organization.
Cross Boundary Authentication Problem Complexities
With hybrid and multi clouds proliferating in the world today, identity security across disparate platforms has become a big concern. According to the report, 85 percent of organizations can see actions across disjointed authentication boundaries. The remaining vulnerability accounts for only 15% of this, but it’s a very big percentage of the IT scene.
The task of obtaining consistent identity verification of users across diverse platforms is complicated by a wide range of authentication mechanisms and security protocols. Through the Identity Security Revolution, we are able to make the mass adoption of federated identity management and single sign on (SSO) possible so as to reduce friction in the user authentication process using various platforms. These solutions ensure that identities are verifiable identically, regardless of which system or application was waste
Identity Security Incidents: A Growing Concern
One of the most concerning things found in few reports was identity security breaches overall. According to the report, 45 per cent of organization’s have had an identity security incident in the past year. These breaches remind us just how far we have to go as identity based attacks are still a penance and the Identity Security Revolution is the starting point for more effective security measures.
Impersonation Attacks: A Leading Threat Vector
Impersonation attack is the most common type of identity based attack, in which the cyber criminal pretends to be a legitimate user, or trustable entity. In these attacks social engineering is used, by which employees are tricked into giving away sensitive information or being given unauthorized access. We present the concept in the Identity Security Revolution where advanced behavioral analysis tools are used to detect subtle anomalies in user behavior in order to responsibly prevent big impact impersonation attacks before they happen.
Also, organizations need to spend in the right place on employee training programs to increase employee’s awareness of these social engineering tactics and guide them on how to recognize and react when faced with potential threats. A culture of security awareness is helpful to improve chances of success against impersonation attacks and protect identity of a company in digital world.
Rogue Identities: The Elusiveness of Them
But whilst many organizations believe they know who is their riskiest identities, they’re only half way there. Based on what we know, 86 percent of organizations claim they can identify their riskiest identities, but the high number of successful attacks tells us that something is missing between what they claim they’re able to do and what they are able to do. This demonstrates the need for better metrics to measure identity risk correctly and for identifying rogue identities before their malicious effects against public benefit objectives jeopardize their usefulness.
The real time risk assessment as part of the Identity Security Revolution is rock solid based on analytics fueled by AI and machine learning to assess risk profiles of human and non human identities continuously. These tools help organizations find ‘high risk’ identities that have potentially slipped by traditional security measures, thus reducing the risk to any missed threat.
The Human Factor: A Critical Identity Risk
Not the identity that causes organizations the most risk, however—human identity, not nonhuman identity like API keys and service accounts—this report shows that that identity is eclipsed in popularity by the unchecked proliferation of shadow identities that do. Employees are revealed to be the weakest link in the identity security framework of an organization, they can be easily manipulated and attacked by cyber criminals, the report says. The Identity Security Revolution seeks to spur the adoption of the latest security technology knowledge of people’s patterns.
The other piece that organizations need to consider is to balance the technical safeguards with human factors. Plus, there are a number of ways an employee can be vulnerable, such as through these emotional states, personal circumstance or security awareness. As businesses adopt a more focused and holistic approach to identity risk management, there remains great potential to mitigate the risk on the employees’ human identity and make the working environment safer for the people using the business.
Organizational Silos and Budget Discrepancies: Problem
It also reveals the need for an integrated approach to identity security within the growing Identity Security Revolution
Most organizations are in silo and each silo has its own responsibility to manage a single piece of identity management. This fragmented approach can easily become prey to the cyber criminals to expose an hole in security coverage as well.
In addition, the report calls for deeper investment in identity security solutions. In most small companies, budget is usually a show stopper and the adoption of advanced security tools becomes unaffordable. This is the time of the Identity Security Revolution so we need reallocation of resources towards identity security and identity security is budgeted and funded appropriately.
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