As organizations worldwide prepare for the evolving landscape of cybersecurity, identity management has emerged as a pivotal focus. As identity experts anticipate, identity by 2025 will no longer be considered solely a security challenge. It’s gonna be the new ground zero, the new battleground in this larger fight against all cyber threats. Neal Goldman, Principal Product Manager for BeyondTrust’s Endpoint Privilege Management for Linux agrees and he says that this change is long overdue. He says, “In 2025, identity is more than a security challenge. It’s the new front line. And too many of those organizations are caught flat-footed.”
The consequences of identity management go much further than just human users. Machine identities are growing at a breakneck pace. Yet their risk profile is now 7.5 times higher than that of human identities, presenting a massive conundrum. The ability to create machine identities dwarfs human identities by an astounding 45 to 1 ratio. This staggering gap only makes it more urgent for organizations to harden their identity security pillars.
The Risks of Identity Theft
The stakes are high when it comes to identity security. Just one stolen credential is enough to allow an attacker to obtain the privileges associated with that identity. This gives them unfettered access to sensitive data and essential systems. As organizations continue to work through this new and complex hybrid/remote workplace landscape, it’s critical for them to understand the weaknesses that improper offboarding creates. Beyond human users, the 2025 OWASP Top 10 Risks for Non-Human Identities report lists improper offboarding as the number one risk. Most importantly, it makes clear that a lack of identity transition management can lead to harmful security compromises.
As the recent OWASP Top Ten report notes, lack of proper offboarding is a top threat. Secrets leakage is right on its heels as the second most important risk. Such incidents can greatly undermine an organization’s security posture, so it’s critical for teams to establish strong preventive controls.
“In 2025, identity isn’t just a security issue—it’s the battleground. And too many organizations are getting caught flat-footed.” – Neal Goldman
Key Control Measures for Identity Security
To protect against these growing threats, organizations need to take a holistic approach to identity security. Two fundamental control layers are essential in crafting an effective defense-in-depth strategy: restricting access to only known and trusted identities and protecting the credentials those identities use.
One of these very effective measures is implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA), or approval of service desk tickets before granting access to sensitive assets. Such controls prevent unauthorized intrusions by ensuring only authorized personnel can access critical systems.
A third control measure is to set up a system for auto-approval of requests for actions that carry little risk, applying some form of predetermined criteria. Moving to a zero-trust approach will provide the efficiency of seamless operations along with the security protection that our new digital reality demands.
Recording and auditing every elevation action taken in a single, centralized place is just as critical. User Privilege Monitoring Monitoring user privileges allows organizations to quickly detect when user privileges have been changed or granted, as well as spot-prime suspicious activity.
The Role of Just-In-Time Access Tools
To counter these new identity-based attacks, organizations are increasingly relying on Just-In-Time (JIT) access tools as a core component of their identity security strategy. These tools enable safe, self-service elevation in a controlled way that lets users chime in and remove privileged access to systems on any needed schedule. We will automatically revoke your access after 3 months of inactivity. It can be rescinded when a service ticket gets closed or at the end of a completed on-call rotation.
This approach reduces the hazard of extended build by making sure that users merely obvious privileges when they’re required. Given that many systems default users to administrative roles, such as fresh Windows installations, it becomes crucial to implement such controls proactively.
On Linux systems, users are able to elevate privileges at will through sudo commands without enterprise level oversight, making the security puzzle even more complex. BeyondTrust offers solutions designed to provide fine-grained, auditable control over what any identity can do on any endpoint while preserving operational agility.