Security teams are facing "the perfect storm" these days, with four seemingly major contributing factors at play:
- AI and generative AI
- Geopolitical dynamics
- Changing regulatory compliance requirements
- Continuing growth in ransomware.
They all lead to a very complex threat scenario that requires significant effort from cybersecurity professionals to protect their enterprises. At the heart of these next-gen cyber defenses lies the core concept of Identity, and unfortunately, what identity entails is significantly shifting.
That is according to Alberto Yépez, managing director at Forgepoint Capital https://forgepointcap.com , who laid out the perfect storm warning. Yépez noted that, for example, security teams cannot combat ransomware through one solution alone. Ultimately, a threat actor's goal in using ransomware is to access sensitive, valuable data located in someone's network, and they do that by attacking a core networking principle that affects many different systems. "They want to try to compromise your identity," says Yépez, because that's the entry into the rest of the kingdom. "The moment [threat actors] get in, they try to exploit vulnerabilities in your network. They go and search for known vulnerabilities either in your device or your servers or network," he said. "They stay in your network and try to understand what information becomes critical for them so that they can benefit the most."
Regarding the identity technologies companies use to protect themselves, Yépez argued that they are not fully serving us anymore. Users must be vigilant about protecting their credentials to protect their personally identifiable information (PII). Still, the key to addressing these problems goes beyond just developing new identity management solutions and practices. We must also change our perspective of identity and what it is becoming.
He explained, "We ourselves have multiple personas. Every time we have an account or an ID that we set up in our system or a banking system [it's a new ID], we have so many different identities and digital personas." He added that "even software has an identity," with its credentials that need to be safeguarded. "Don't just limit yourself to [thinking] that identity is just the individual or multiple digital personas," Yépez said, explaining that in addition to software instances, mobile applications have their own identities, as do various infrastructure parts, browsers, routers, cloud buckets, and everything in between. If these are all aspects of a company's multifaceted identity footprint, then every element must be managed and protected from threat actors.
This makes it even more challenging to protect organizations from threats, but thinking about identity through this perspective broadens security teams' collective perception of the threat landscape. In the era of "multiple digital personas," security teams must consider all the moving parts that require attention, especially with the aforementioned perfect storm always on the horizon in the form of the latest technologies and the threats that accompany them. As Yépez says, "At the end of the day, once those credentials get compromised," all bets are off regarding data protection.
This article is presented at no charge for educational and informational purposes only.
Red Sky Alliance is a Cyber Threat Analysis and Intelligence Service organization. For questions, comments, or assistance, please get in touch with the office directly at 1-844-492-7225 or feedback@redskyalliance.com
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