The Credential Status of Identity Protection 2024: An Upheaval in Identity Protection Is on the Horizon
Identity protection is at the forefront with the recent security breaches affecting major companies like Microsoft, Okta, Cloudflare, and Snowflake among others. Organizations are beginning to recognize the need for a significant change in how we approach safeguarding identities, both strategically and technologically.
Identity protection goes beyond just granting access
The traditional perspective of considering identity protection mainly focused on granting and revoking access for applications and services, often in an incremental manner, is no longer adequate. This perspective was highlighted as a prevalent theme in the Permiso Security State of Identity Security Report (2024). The report reveals that despite an increasing level of trust in identifying security threats, nearly half of organizations (45%) are either “worried” or “highly concerned” about the capabilities of their current tools to detect and defend against identity security breaches.
The survey commissioned by Permiso during the summer, which involved over 500 IT security and risk experts with direct authority or influence over security and risk decision-making, revealed that despite increased investment, maturity, and confidence in cybersecurity controls, organizations remain wary in the face of evolving identity threats.
Crucial findings include:
- Software as a Service (SaaS) is perceived as the most risky environment.
- 93% of entities claimed they can catalog identities across all environments and monitor keys, tokens, certificates, and any alterations made in any setting.
- 85% can ascertain “who is engaging in what” across disparate authentication borders.
- 45% are either “worried” or “highly concerned” about the effectiveness of their current tools to identify and shield against identity security breaches.
- 45% encountered an identity security incident in the previous year, with impersonation attacks being the primary threat.
Are you able to identify unauthorized identities?
Even though 86% of organizations assert their capability to recognize their most problematic identities (human and non-human), almost half (45%) experienced an identity security incident in the past year, with impersonation attacks leading the list of threats – indicating that socially-engineered attacks persist as a prevalent danger to organizations.
Regarding repercussions for those affected by breaches, the focus on sensitive data, comprising personally identifiable information (PII) and intellectual property (IP), ranked highest for 54% of the breached entities. 46% of organizations reported that threat actors escalated privileges and targeted their supply chains (45%) on both the vendor and client fronts.
Human identities are a vulnerable target
Another intriguing discovery was that human identities are perceived as the riskiest, with employees ranking the highest. Despite the prevalent market buzz, non-human identities like API keys, OAuth tokens, and service accounts are considered less risky than their human equivalents.
Identity protection is fragmented
It remains ambiguous whether organizations comprehend the responsibilities of identity security in the hybrid and multi-cloud environment. Despite the majority of organizations utilizing an average of 2.5 public clouds, the IT department (56%) was identified as primarily responsible for ensuring identity security across multiple settings. This might suggest that identity is still perceived as confined to access provision and revocation. According to Jason Martin, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Permiso, this discovery could be elucidated by “identity security typically falling under the general purview of IT as custodians of IT systems, which involves granting access and securing identities. Only a minority of organizations view the security department as the principal stakeholder.”
Security funding seems to be fragmented, with Software as a Service (87%) and Infrastructure as a Service (81%) platforms receiving the majority of security investment compared to all platforms (46%). The Infrastructure as a Service layer (66%) has notably received a significant portion of attention in terms of tools, including the utilization of cloud native security solutions like AWS GuardDuty and CNAPP products.
Even though most companies demonstrate awareness of the cybersecurity risks they encounter, it is evident that there is room for improvement in detecting and responding to identity threats promptly. Organizations highlighted the priority of detecting and preventing issues like credential compromise, account takeover, and insider threats.
Advancing universal identity security
The responsibility lies with all parties – vendors, firms, and the wider security community – to rethink the necessary requirements in terms of people, processes, and technology to safeguard both human and non-human identities, which are now the primary threat vectors. In this context, the focus should shift from merely managing access to applications and services to recognizing identity security as a key business facilitator.
Permiso Security was established to tackle this challenge by realizing unified identity security for all types of identities across diverse environments.
To access the complete report, visit: https://hero.permiso.io/state-of-identity-security-survey-report-2024
Discover more about how Permiso can assist in implementing this strategy within your organization.
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