The 2023 Threat Landscape Has Evolved, Identity-first Security is a Must

COVID-19 changed the world. It expedited significant changes within the technology industry in particular, which created more opportunity for risk.  As a result, there has been tremendous growth in the identity security space as more leaders began to see the benefits of identity focused security solutions. Especially as organizations continue their migration to the cloud and cloud related technologies.

Security cannot end at the gate. Identity-first security means  identities and their access should be verified and controlled on all levels, access points, network, applications, services, APIs, data and infrastructure. As an example, controlling access at the network level can’t be the sole reason for the decision regarding which data the user can access, or which services (s)he can consume. A lot of solutions attempt to solve or minimize the risk of a cyber adversary breaching an organization’s network. Hence, this is why it is critical that leaders invest in solutions that support identity level controls on all required levels of an organization’s technology stack. This measure reduces the risk of a devastating breach simply by restricting movement within the network until it is authenticated.

Data is the primary asset of many organizations,  as it supports the business, and collaborating with data is a key requirement by many.  For that reason, identity focused solutions will become even more prevalent. Everyone is trying to solve the problem of what happens when credentials are compromised and a network is breached. The simplest approach is to minimize movement until security teams are able to resolve the incident. Cybersecurity is a defense-based mission and having a well-equipped team with smart security solutions can be the differentiating factor between a major cyber incident and an alert.

It is important to keep in mind that data breaches will continue to become more aggressive and increasingly expensive. Especially when businesses are continuing to consolidate their data into large  data hubs – which is incredible for increasing productivity and allowing workers to contribute anywhere in the world. However, this convenience adds a massive security risk that requires modern tools to meet the problem head on.

Ultimately, there will be an increasing number of technologies and cloud vendors who will offer policy options in addition to the traditional entitlement and role-based methods. It is exciting to see and is a very positive step towards simplifying this challenging technology space.