Compromising Identities

New environments create new identities and, consequently, compromising identities will remain the most preferred method for attackers to evade cyber defences and gain access to critical data and assets.

Most of organisations in India expect identity-related compromise this year, stemming from economic-driven cutbacks, geopolitical factors, cloud adoption and hybrid working. A majority (84%) say this will happen as part of a digital transformation initiative such as cloud adoption or legacy app migration.

A report from CyberArk shows how the tension between difficult economic conditions and the pace of technology innovation, including the evolution of artificial intelligence, is influencing the growth of identity-led cybersecurity exposure.

The Report details on how these issues have the potential to result in a compounding of ‘cyber debt’: where investment in digital and cloud initiatives outpaces cybersecurity spend, creating a rapidly expanding and unsecured identity-centric attack surface.

In 2022, organisations experienced growing cyber debt, where security spend over the pandemic period lagged investment in broader digital business initiatives.

In 2023, levels of cyber debt are at risk of compounding, driven by an economic squeeze, elevated levels of staff turnover, a consumer spend downturn and an uncertain global environment. With investment in digital and cloud initiatives is still ongoing as business leaders seek to unlock greater efficiencies and innovation, these factors have had knock-on effects to cybersecurity.

Identities – both human and machine - are at the heart of all, or nearly all, attacks. Three-fourths of identities in Indian organisations require sensitive access to perform their roles and are a favoured attack vector. A report found that critical areas of the IT environment are inadequately protected and identifies the identity types that represent significant risk.

Going forward, business transformation, driven by digital and cloud initiatives, continues to result in a surge in new enterprise identities. While attackers are constantly innovating, compromising identities remains the most effective way to circumvent cyber defenses and access sensitive data and assets. Such profound risk puts the issue of “who and what to trust” at the forefront of efforts to prevent cyber debt from compounding, and to build long-term cyber resilience.