Why Identity Security Will Become A Priority For Leaders in 2025

This finding struck me while examining the State of Machine Identity Management 2023 report: Over a third of businesses (34%) have a limited enterprise-wide strategy for managing public key infrastructure (PKI) and machine identities, while 22% don't have a strategy at all. Those numbers are worrying, especially because more than 7 in 10 cyberattacks in the past 12 months involved improper access or over-privileged users.

Several IT problems can be traced to executive buy-in (or lack thereof), and identity security is no different. Over 7 in 10 (75%) cybersecurity leaders alluded to a lack of executive-level support as a blocker to setting enterprise-wide identity and management (IAM) strategy.

The sophistry of identity attacks waits for no board member. As you set your 2025 security goals, it's a no-brainer tactic to prioritize IAM, which includes managing the identities of people (e.g., employees and partners) and machines (e.g., devices and workloads like containers, virtual machines, and applications.

The Three Pillars Of Identity Security To Consider

Every executive and board member should prioritize three critical areas regarding digital asset security: compliance, risk management, and trust. Addressing these areas will help your organization create a resilient and comprehensive IAM strategy.

1. Compliance

Compliance helps your organization adhere to regulatory standards, laws, and regulations. It helps businesses avoid costly penalties and reputational damage if or when breached.

More importantly, compliance ensures adherence to updated security practices. For instance, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently removed the age-long requirement to change passwords periodically. In this scenario, compliance with the latest NIST directive will improve your password hygiene.

IAM, which lets you verify and audit the access of authorized entities, is an area you shouldn't ignore in your compliance efforts. Failure is almost always fatal, as witnessed in July 2022 with the ransomware attack on OneTouchPoint (OTP), a mailing and printing vendor to health carriers and medical professionals. The breach affected 2.6 million people and compromised sensitive patient information, including names, addresses, member IDs, and information provided during health assessment.

The OTP incident highlights a significant compliance failure. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires covered entities like OTP to protect patient data and notify affected individuals of any breach exposing sensitive information. OTP, however, violated these requirements.

2. Risk Management

There's a cliché in cybersecurity: you can't protect what you don't know. That is why your organization must invest in effective risk management, which assesses vulnerabilities and potential threats cybercriminals can exploit. Risk management also lets you implement controls, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) and the principle of least privilege, to mitigate identified weaknesses in your internal systems.

3. Trust

You can't afford not to implement the best security practices if you care about building trust with customers, partners, and potential investors. It’s why many large software companies appoint Chief Trust Officers. They understand that the perception of safety and security directly impacts revenue.

Customer’s trust will likely tumble if you overlook identity security. The LastPass security breach in November 2022 is a case in point. The password manager lost significant user trust after attackers gained unauthorized access to customer vault data, including encrypted passwords and unencrypted website URLs. 

5 Ways to Implement Identity Security

The best way to implement identity security isn’t to see it as another checkbox that people review once or twice a year like spring-cleaning chores. That's the old, ineffective game. Instead, identity security is a strategic advantage and an opportunity to stamp cybersecurity culture amongst employees.

You can implement identity security measures using one or a combination of any of the following principles:

1. MFA: The authentication technique confirms identities are who they say they are before granting access. I won't parrot the misquoted Microsoft data that MFA stops 99% of all attacks—it doesn't. Instead, it stops a significant portion of attacks involving account compromise, and that's why you should use MFA for account protection.
2.  Zero Trust Security (never trust, always verify): Trust is an expensive currency in cybersecurity—you shouldn't spend it without reason. Zero Trust posits that no entity (users, devices, and apps) should have implicit and absolute access to your internal systems. Rather, every entity must be authenticated and granted per-need access to resources. Its goal is to prevent cyberattacks and minimize the impact of breaches when they inevitably happen. In 2022, 59% of organizations that didn't deploy Zero Trust spent over $1 million on breach costs than those that did.
3. Single Sign-On (SSO): SSO simplifies access management and improves user experience across cloud and on-premises environments.
4. Privileged Account Management (PAM): Helps to secure and monitor high-risk administrative accounts, limiting potential damage from compromised credentials.
5. AI-driven Threat Detection: It enables real-time, context-aware threat analysis and automated response mechanisms that significantly reduce the time between threat detection and mitigation and breach costs. In 2024, organizations that used AI and automation in their security stack paid $1.88 million less on breach costs than those that didn't.

Make Identity Security Your Culture in 2025

Technology is growing. Human users aren't the only identities security professionals must protect. Machines (apps, devices, and cloud resources) have identities they must manage. Security leaders must recognize the technological change and tweak their organizational security approach to fit the latest identity landscape.

In this sense, decision-makers and cybersecurity leaders must lead IAM implementation. They must mandate resource documentation and regular security audits. Additionally, security executives must hire security talents to fill human resource gaps. They must also oversee the creation of relevant policies and procedures to stamp identity security culture.

At this juncture, I must add a caveat: I don't think identity security is a walk in the park—it's arduous and painstakingly difficult to achieve. But when you implement it successfully, it's worth its weight in regulatory compliance and risk mitigation. Its merits don’t end there. It helps businesses build a foundation of trust that improves user experience, business growth, and innovation, turning a potential weakness into a competitive advantage.