Survey: 92% of global organisations indicate identity security as critical for robust zero trust implementation

CyberArk (NASDAQ: CYBR), the global identity security company, today announced findings of a global survey that explores trends in identity security adoption and the relative maturity of organisations embarking on related strategies. Results show that only 9% of organisations are taking an agile, holistic and mature approach to securing identities throughout their hybrid and multicloud environments. The report features an identity security maturity model to help cyber security leaders assess their current strategies, uncover risks and take steps to strengthen cyber resilience. 

Experts recognise identity security as critical path for cyber resilience “The Holistic Identity Security Maturity Model: Raising the Bar for Cyber Resilience” report features results from a survey of 1 500 cyber security professionals conducted by CyberArk and Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). Based on the global survey, the data-driven model identifies 9% of organisations as those with the most mature and holistic identity security strategies. These transformative organisations have a well-rounded focus on implementing identity security tools, are inherently agile and display a “fail fast, learn faster” characteristic even in times of a successful cyber security attack. Forty-two percent of all respondents’ identity security programs, however, are in the earliest stage of maturity and lack foundational tools and integrations to quickly mitigate identity-related risk. An expanding identity attack surface, IT complexity and several organisational roadblocks contribute to this widespread identity security deficit. Notable findings include:

• Strategy and outcome gap: 69% of C-level executives believe they are making correct identity security-related decisions compared to 52% of all other personnel (technical decision-makers and practitioners). The gap highlights the perception that overall security can be achieved by making the right technology investments. But that is only part of the story. Strategically maximising those investments to include implementation and integration with existing environments, breaking down silos and improved training are equally important.
• Disparate endpoint data: 92% of respondents believe that endpoint security or device trust and identity management are essential to a robust zero trust strategy, and 65% believe the ability to correlate data is critical for effectively securing endpoints.
• Fragmented efforts: 58% of organisations have two teams responsible for securing identities in the cloud and on-premises and rely on numerous point solutions, making it difficult to understand their real-time security posture.

“This research uncovers the relationship between a strong identity security strategy and enhanced business outcomes,” said Jack Poller, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). “More frequent and timely maturity assessments can help ensure the right users have access to the right data, and that organisations can act quickly enough to stop threats before they stop business.”

Drawing from these data-based peer insights, the Holistic Identity Security Maturity Model framework is designed to help organisations evaluate their maturity across four tenets of identity security:

• Procurement of tools spanning management, privilege controls, governance, authentication and authorisation for all identities and identity types.
• Integrations with other IT and security solutions within the organisation’s stack to secure access to all corporate assets and environments.
• Automation to help ensure continuous compliance with policies, industry standards and regulations, along with rapid response to high-volume routine and anomalous events.
• Continuous threat detection and response capabilities based on a solid understanding of identity behaviours and organisational policies.

“While 63% of organisations admit to being a victim of identity-based attacks, this percentage is likely much higher as adversaries continue to successfully target and compromise identities at scale,” said Amita Potnis, director, thought leadership marketing, CyberArk. “The main focus for organisations looking to adopt a mature holistic identity security strategy is to secure access for all identities – human and machine – by breaking down silos and adopting a consolidated and automated approach for identity security. Our research indicates that many have already begun investing in this journey, with 24% of organisations committing more than 10% of their overall cyber security budget to their identity security programs this year.”

Transformative organisations, which account for 9% of the total respondent base, have reached the pinnacle of maturity having embraced a unified approach to identity security. The CyberArk Identity Security Platform embodies this approach, applying intelligent privilege controls to all identities – human and machine – with continuous threat detection and prevention across the entire identity life cycle. With CyberArk, organisations can enable zero trust and least privilege with complete visibility, ensuring that every identity can securely access any resource, located anywhere, from everywhere.

To access the full survey and framework, download the report: https://www.cyberark.com/resources/analyst-reports/the-holistic-identity-security-maturity-model

The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) conducted a survey of 1 500 IT and security decision-makers in the third quarter of 2022. All respondents operated in a multicloud environment and were knowledgeable about their organisation’s identity and access management strategies and capabilities. They were based in North America (US, Canada), Latin America (Mexico, Brazil), EMEA (Israel, Germany, UK, Spain, Italy, Netherlands) and APJ (Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan).

1 – Enterprise Strategy Group, “The Holistic Identity Security Maturity Model: Raising the Bar for Cyber Resilience,” February 2023 by Jack Poller