Cloud environment intrusions have increased by 75% year on year, and it takes around 120 days for organizations to detect cyberattacks in the cloud. Additionally, the rise of remote working has only intensified the complexity. With employees connecting from various locations and devices, the number of attack vectors has increased significantly.
This atmosphere, combined with the sprawl of identities (human and machine) and the disparate teams and systems providing different levels of access to them, creates blind spots. Many organizations struggle to have the visibility needed to identify where they’re most at risk, what attacks are taking place, and how to mitigate those risks.
Many of these issues start at the identity layer. Much has been discussed about digital identities being the new network perimeter; the challenge is how to become more proactive in protecting them.
Identity threats are fast-evolving—and there are many to consider—but in this blog, we’ve narrowed it down to the most critical exposures. These pose the most significant risks to your organization; tackling them is a great way to strengthen your security posture and reduce your overall identity attack surface.
Understanding Identity Threats and Exposures
The first step to protecting your organization is understanding where threats may arise—whether from malicious actors or accidental exposures. This comes with visibility. But where do you start? Here are some key areas to consider when examining your potential areas of risk.
Malicious Identity-Based Attacks
The cloud offers great flexibility but is also a treasure trove for attackers looking to exploit vulnerabilities. Let’s examine the top identity exposures:
- Compromised credentials
- Privilege escalation
- Malicious insiders
- Third-party risk
One of the most common ways attackers break in is by compromising credentials. Think about it: if a hacker gets hold of your password—whether through phishing, brute force, or data breaches—they suddenly have the keys to your kingdom.
Once inside, they’re not just stopping there. They’ll look for ways to escalate privileges, moving laterally through your systems, gaining access to sensitive data, or even acting as an admin. This is especially dangerous because, with admin-level access, they can do almost anything—change configurations, access confidential information, or disrupt operations.
But it’s not just external attackers you need to worry about. Sometimes, the threat comes from within. Malicious insiders, whether disgruntled employees or contractors, might use their legitimate access to harm the company. Since these individuals are already trusted, their actions are harder to detect.
And let’s not forget about third-party risk. Your vendors and suppliers are often given access to your systems, and if their security is weak, you could be exposed through them. It’s a chain reaction—if they’re attacked, you’re also at risk.
Accidental Identity Exposures or Risks
Not all threats are intentional. Some of the biggest identity threats and exposures come from within your own organization, and often, they’re unintentional. These can include:
- Insider negligence
- Orphaned or dormant accounts
- Access creep
- Access misconfigurations
- Toxic access combinations
Insider negligence is a huge issue. Employees may accidentally leave sensitive data exposed or fail to follow security protocols simply because they’re unaware or careless.
Then there’s the issue of orphaned or dormant accounts—user accounts that are no longer in use but haven’t been deactivated. These accounts can linger in your system for months or even years, and if an attacker finds one, they’ve just found a backdoor into your network.
Another common problem is access creep. Over time, users are granted more and more access permissions, often far beyond what they actually need to do their jobs. This makes them a more valuable target for attackers. Similarly, misconfigured access controls can leave doors open for unauthorized users, often because it’s easy to overlook or mismanage permissions in complex cloud environments.
Finally, one of the trickiest risks to manage is the presence of toxic combinations of access permissions. On their own, certain permissions may seem harmless, but when combined, they can create dangerous vulnerabilities. This allows attackers—or even careless employees—to inadvertently create major security risks.
So, what can you do? Here are some best practices and resources to get you started.
How to Protect Your Organization from Identity Threats and Exposures
- Implement Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): MFA reduces the likelihood of compromised credentials by requiring an additional layer of verification. If you are an EntraID customer, you can leverage conditional access policies to further strengthen security. Here are a couple of resources that can help ensure you are enforcing proper policies at the point of login:
- Enforce Least Privilege Access: Ensure that users only have access to the resources they need and regularly review and revoke unnecessary privileges. Learn more about the principle of least privilege.
- Conduct Regular or Automated Access Reviews: Leverage access reviews to catch access issues, i.e., orphaned or overprivileged accounts, before they become a problem. Watch our on-demand webinar, User Access Reviews, Simplified! and download the User Access Review plan and get prepared today!
- Strengthen Third-Party Vendor Security: Conduct thorough security assessments of third-party vendors and ensure they comply with your security policies.
- Get Unified Visibility across Your Identity Fabric: You can’t protect what you cannot see. Having a holistic view into human and machine access across your cloud, SaaS applications, and identity providers is critical. With an identity-centric security platform like Rezonate, you can see who has access to what, what they’re allowed to do, and if they are at higher levels of risk.
- Monitor for Anomalous Behavior: With real-time visibility into access, you can spot anomalous behavior and remediate access quickly. This enables you to achieve real-time, intelligent actionability and proactively prevent or shut down attacks in real-time. Rezonate offers continuous privilege monitoring to detect unusual login patterns, privilege escalation attempts, and access anomalies.
Detect Identity Threat Exposures and Get Ahead of Attackers (and Auditors)
Your modern cloud and SaaS infrastructure may open the door to significant identity threats and exposures. By understanding the landscape of malicious attacks and accidental risks, you can take the necessary steps to secure your identity fabric.
Proactively implementing the proper controls and continuously monitoring identity risks will strengthen your security posture and help you shut down threats before they cause harm. Request a 1:1 demo of Rezonate to see how we can help you protect your identities and get ahead of the attackers. Still not sure where to start? Grab our list of 100 User Access Review Prompts and see where you stand today.
