Historically, an attack on one’s identity which is often described as phishing has been the greatest attack vector for hackers. As organizations are forced to rely on digital infrastructures more than ever, attackers started to realize that the weakest link was the identity management systems themselves. The unfortunate combination of those two trends has led to an increase in security breaches at an alarming rate. Now, attacks on identity are the leading source of data breaches.
The scale and complexity of today’s organizations only makes this issue worse. The average organization with 1,000 active users has well more than 15,000 accounts under management. Every account has different details of configuration and has different weaknesses. These jaw-dropping numbers paint a dire picture of the ever-expanding and easily exploited attack surface organizations are currently losing the battle against. What happened in 2024 would turn out to be the most significant watershed moment ever in this arena. Even more dangerous, the infamous Snowflake breaches highlighted a growing trend of identity-based security threats.
As the technology landscape continues to advance, cybersecurity professionals are increasingly being put in a difficult position by attackers adapting and employing more complex tactics. Phishing, which operates on an industrial scale, have obfuscation and detection evasion techniques that have become sophisticated, making it hard to defend an organization’s most valuable assets. In 2025, during the Scattered Spider attacks, insurance companies were the targets. Each of these events underscored the importance of improved identity management and identity protection.
The Impact of Snowflake Breaches
The Snowflake breaches of 2024 were an inflection point in cybersecurity history. As a side effect, they highlighted the substantial gaps in national identity management frameworks. These breaches are often driven by a loss of control and visibility when it comes to how users are logging in and their multi-factor authentication (MFA) enforcement status. Attackers quickly learned to maneuver through these vulnerabilities and accessed sensitive information without permission—shouting alarm bells across industries.
The impact of these breaches raised the visibility of identity security and compelled organizations to reconsider their approach. People have come to understand that successful identity management is more than just strong security measures. It requires centralized visibility across all applications. Each application offers a unique security control approach that strengthens the security posture. If allowed to be implemented haphazardly, these differences can lead to dangerous chasms in safety.
The breaches underscored the reality that attackers have made workforce identities their #1 target. By undermining these identities, they establish beachheads inside organizations, enabling them to perform laterally and access elevated accounts. This change in strategy emphasizes the importance for all organizations to take identity security seriously and put in place strong protective measures.
The Evolving Threat Landscape
Cyber threats are always changing and growing. The unfortunate result is that organizations today face a wide, deep attack surface where hundreds of apps and thousands of accounts have a different administrator. This complexity creates a profound vulnerability for the environment. Regardless of an organization’s size or industry, it’s important for security teams to always work from a proactive approach to identity management.
A powerful contributing factor to identity vulnerability and fragility is the overwhelming lack of consistent configurability across applications. Each application has its own challenges related to user permissions and security controls. This complexity can present hurdles to managing a consistent, organization-wide security posture. This inconsistency creates de facto blind spots which attackers are all too happy to take advantage of.
Moreover, attackers are known to utilize advanced techniques such as bot protection measures like CAPTCHA and Cloudflare Turnstile to circumvent traditional security tools. Terrorists employ these strategies to increase the likelihood that they’ll be able to successfully carry out attacks. Simultaneously, they avoid detection by security mechanisms. This trend illustrates the need to keep security protocols even more up to date and nimble to respond to newly developing threats.
Strategies for Mitigating Identity Vulnerabilities
Considering that identity attacks are on the rise, utilizing identity-first security strategies should be top-of-mind for any organization looking to shore up their security landscapes. One of the most powerful strategies is pursuing robust infrastructure monitoring systems. In tandem, these solutions provide unprecedented real-time visibility into user activity and account configurations across all applications.
Organizations must make sure that their authentication mechanisms are as strong as possible. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is still one of the best defenses against identity compromise. It is important to implement MFA broadly, everywhere you can. We need to inform users on why it matters too.
Firms need to understand the importance of endpoint security. Most attackers first gain a foothold on an endpoint via a software exploit. They further use social engineering tactics to fool users into executing malware on their devices. By investing in robust endpoint protection solutions, organizations can reduce the risk of successful attacks and better safeguard their identities.
