Indian firms prioritizing speed over security as AI and machine identities surge: CyberArk report

The study finds most organizations lack control over machine identities, with security concerns around manipulation and sensitive access emerging as major barriers to Agentic AI adoption and a growing identity security challenge

CyberArk has released its 2025 Identity Security Landscape report, highlighting how the rapid adoption of AI and cloud technologies is unintentionally expanding the identity-based attack surface. The study reveals that most organizations lack visibility and control over machine identities. It also identifies security concerns—particularly around manipulation and sensitive access—as key barriers to adopting Agentic AI, signalling the rise of a significant new challenge in identity security management.

2025 Identity Security Landscape Highlights

‘Rise of the machines’ contributes to unsecured privilege sprawl: Machine identities, driven primarily by cloud and AI, now vastly outnumber human identities within organizations and nearly half have sensitive or privileged access. However, many enterprises leave both human and machine access to critical systems under-secured.

·       There are 82 machine identities for every human in organizations worldwide.

·       In eighty eight percent of organizations, the definition of a ‘privileged user’ applies solely to human identities – but forty two percent of machine identities have privileged or sensitive access.

·       Fifty eight percent do not have identity security controls in place to secure cloud infrastructure and workloads.

·       Seventy six percent of organizations experienced at least two successful identity-centric breaches in the past 12 months, ranging from phishing and vishing attacks including deepfakes, compromised privileged access to identity and third-party identity theft.

AI is everywhere and identity-centric agentic AI risk looms: Sanctioned and unsanctioned adoption of AI and large language models (LLMs) is simultaneously transforming organizations while amplifying cybersecurity risks. Concerns around the emergence of AI agents and their privileged access underscores the urgency for targeted identity security investment.

·       AI will drive the creation of the greatest number of new identities with privileged and sensitive access in 2025.

·       Sixty eight percent of organizations lack identity security controls for AI.

·       Thirty seven percent cannot secure shadow AI usage in their organization.

·       AI agent adoption roadblocks include manipulation and sensitive access concerns.

Complexity and identity silos are overwhelming security leaders and undermining business resilience: Fragmented identity security programs and poor environmental visibility are diminishing resilience in the face of evolving cybersecurity threats. Most organizations face increased privilege-related compliance pressure.

·       Sixty eight percent of Indian respondents say identity silos are a root cause of organizational cybersecurity risk.

·       Seventy seven percent of Indian security professionals agree that their organizations prioritize business efficiencies over robust cybersecurity.

·       Human and machine identities – many of them with privileged access – are expected to double in 2025.

·       Eighty five percent of Indian organizations are under increased pressure from insurers mandating enhanced privilege controls.