What is identity security?

As organizations adopt cloud services, support remote work and manage diverse endpoints and applications, network perimeters become fuzzier, and perimeter-based defenses grow less effective. Digital identities—the distinct profiles that represent users, devices or applications in a system—have become critical to maintaining data security.

According to the IBM® Cost of a Data Breach Report, stolen or compromised credentials are the most common initial attack vector, responsible for 16% of data breaches. When hackers get their hands on user credentials, they use them to take over valid accounts and abuse their privileges. 

Identity security helps ensure that only authorized users can access specific resources while minimizing the risks of identity- and credential-based attacks.

With effective identity security, organizations can reduce vulnerabilities, improve operational efficiency and protect against cyberthreats such as phishing attacks and data breaches.

Historically, organizations protected their systems and data by establishing a secure network perimeter protected by tools such as firewalls, virtual private networks (VPNs) and antivirus software. This “digital fence” assumed that everything on-premises inside the corporate network was trustworthy, while everything outside had to be blocked.

But with digital transformation, that neat perimeter disappeared. As organizations adopted remote work, hybrid and multicloud environments and third-party software as a service (SaaS) tools, the corporate network became too diffuse for perimeter-based security.

Security strategies shifted, too, from securing network assets to securing access, placing digital identities at the center of cybersecurity. The question becomes not “What network are you on?” but “Who are you, and should you be accessing this?”

Threat actors, too, adapted. Rather than breaching firewalls, they began targeting identities directly by using phishing, credential theft and session hijacking to impersonate users and escalate privileges. According to the IBM X-Force® Threat Intelligence Index, the abuse of valid accounts is one of the most common ways that hackers break into enterprise networks, accounting for 30% of cyberattacks.

In this environment, identity security emerged as a distinct cybersecurity discipline, focused on protecting digital identities and their associated access privileges from theft, misuse and abuse. 

Identity security builds on identity and access management (IAM), a security framework for managing user identities and controlling access to systems and data. It adds protection, detection and response capabilities focused specifically on securing digital identities.

In other words, identity security doesn't replace IAM—it extends it with capabilities such as continuous monitoring, contextual access enforcement and automated responses to suspicious activity. Where IAM determines who gets access, identity security helps ensure access remains secure.

Together, identity security and IAM form the foundation of modern identity security solutions, helping organizations secure digital identities, manage user permissions and defend against identity-based cyberthreats.

Identity security is a discipline that unites several distinct tools and practices into a cohesive program for protecting digital identities throughout their lifecycle. This comprehensive security framework enables organizations to streamline access management while maintaining robust data protection.

Key components of identity security include:

• Digital identities
• Authentication mechanisms
• Access control
• Identity governance and administration (IGA)
• Identity threat detection and response (ITDR)

Digital identities are the cornerstones of identity security. They represent users, devices and apps in enterprise systems.

Identity security protects these digital entities from unauthorized access so that malicious actors cannot misuse their permissions to steal data, harm assets or cause other damage. 

Common types of identities include:

• User identities: Digital representations of human users, containing attributes such as name, role, department and access privileges.

• Machine identities: Identities attached to entities such as applications, services and IoT devices.

• Service accounts: Special-purpose accounts used by applications to interact with other systems and services. For example, a disaster recovery solution might use a service account to pull backups from a database nightly.   

As organizations adopt more cloud services and ramp up automation efforts, machine identities and service accounts have come to outnumber human user accounts in many networks. One estimate places the ratio of nonhuman to human identities in a typical enterprise at 10:1.¹ The growth of generative AI and AI agents might accelerate this trend even further. 

Identity security helps maintain visibility and control across this expanding identity landscape, facilitating secure access for authorized users while reducing an organization’s attack surface.

Authentication verifies that users are who they claim to be—the first critical checkpoint in identity security. Strong authentication is essential for reducing the risk of unauthorized access to user accounts and sensitive data.

Key authentication methods include:

• Multifactor authentication (MFA): Requires that users present two or more verification factors to prove their identity. This requirement makes it harder for hackers to impersonate users because they need to steal or fabricate multiple factors to access an account.

• Biometric authentication: Uses unique physical characteristics like fingerprints or facial recognition to verify users. Biometric factors are harder to steal than passwords. 

• Passwordless authentication: Eliminates traditional password vulnerabilities in favor of more secure factors, such as cryptographic keys or biometrics.

• Single sign-on (SSO): Allows users to authenticate once and access multiple applications. SSO not only improves user experience but also supports identity security by reducing password fatigue, lowering the risk of weak or reused passwords and centralizing access control enforcement. 

• Adaptive authentication: Dynamically adjusts authentication requirements based on contextual risk factors such as location, device security posture and user behavior patterns. For example, someone logging in from the same device they always use might need to enter only a password. If that same user logs in from a brand-new device, they might need to enter both a password and a fingerprint scan to prove their identity.

Access control determines what authenticated users can access and what actions they're permitted to perform in a system.

Identity security frameworks favor strong access policies based on the principle of least privilege. That is, users have only the access necessary to do their job functions—not more, not less.

Common access control approaches include: 

• Role-based access control (RBAC): Assigns permissions to users based on organizational roles. For example, a finance role might authorize a user to make purchases, while a human resources role might authorize a user to see personnel files.

• Attribute-based access control (ABAC): Assigns access permissions based on the attributes of the user, resource, action and environment. For example, if the chief financial officer (user) wants to access a payment system (resource) to approve a payment (action), ABAC would analyze these factors together and authorize the activity.  

• Policy-based access control (PBAC): Enforces user access decisions based on centralized, dynamic policies that can incorporate context. For instance, a user might be allowed to access a customer database only if their security posture meets the company’s endpoint protection standards and they are in a designated geographic area. 

• Just-in-time (JIT) provisioning: Grants users elevated permissions only when necessary and for limited periods, removing the risks that can come with granting users standing privileges. For example, if a user needs to perform scheduled maintenance on a production server, JIT provisioning can grant them temporary admin access and revoke it when the maintenance window ends.

• Privileged access management (PAM): PAM tools focus specifically on protecting privileged accounts (such as admin accounts) and privileged activities (such as working with sensitive data). Common PAM capabilities include credential vaulting, session monitoring, just-in-time access provisioning and automatic credential rotation.

IGA helps ensure that digital identities have the right access levels and that access is tracked to meet internal and regulatory requirements. 

While IAM solutions control who gets access to systems and data, IGA focuses on whether that access is appropriate, justified and actively monitored. IGA provides an operational framework for managing identity lifecycles and access entitlements, reducing access-related risk and enforcing security policies.

IGA is also an important part of complying with regulatory standards such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It helps organizations prove that access to sensitive systems and data is correctly assigned and regularly reviewed. It also generates audit trails to support internal reviews and external audits.

Key functions of IGA include:

• Provisioning and deprovisioning digital identities: Managing access rights throughout the identity lifecycle to streamline onboarding and reduce offboarding risks. For instance, if an employee changes roles, IGA tools can automatically revoke outdated permissions or assign new ones based on their updated responsibilities. 

• Reviewing access permissions: Conducting periodic audits of user permissions to identify and remediate excessive or inappropriate access levels. Regular audits help organizations enforce the principle of least privilege and reduce the risk of privilege misuse. 

• Security policy enforcement and reporting: Consistently applying security policies—such as separation of duties (SoD) and least privilege—and identifying violations. For instance, if a user attempts to gain access to both a payment system and the approval system—violating SoD rules—identity governance tools can flag or block the transaction.  

ITDR enhances identity security with advanced capabilities to protect identity infrastructure and address identity-based attacks. While not always included in standard identity security solutions, ITDR is becoming more common as organizations seek robust security measures against the growing threat of identity-based attacks.

Key capabilities of ITDR include:

• Continuous monitoring: Real-time surveillance of identity activities—including authentication attempts, access requests and privilege escalations— to detect suspicious activity. For example, ITDR can flag a user who logs in from a new location or attempts to access sensitive information they normally don’t use.

• Behavioral analytics: Advanced algorithms that establish baselines of normal user behavior and flag deviations that might signal potential security threats, such as a hacker hijacking a legitimate account.

• Automated response: Adaptive security controls that take immediate action upon threat detection to minimize potential damage. For example, if a user shows signs of credential misuse, ITDR can revoke their session, force reauthentication or temporarily block access to sensitive data.
  

Identity security augments core IAM controls to deliver key benefits:

• Enhanced security posture

• Regulatory compliance

• Operational efficiency

Identity security can help reduce the likelihood and impact of account hijacking, credential theft, unauthorized access and other identity-based attacks.

Identity security tools can help organizations maintain—and prove—compliance with relevant rules.

Identity security systems can help streamline day-to-day organizational operations.

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are affecting identity security as both a threat and an opportunity.

As a threat, generative AI (gen AI) helps attackers launch effective identity-based attacks in greater numbers and less time. According to the X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, X-Force analysts have seen hackers use gen AI to generate deepfake voices and videos, craft convincing phishing emails and even write malicious code.

As an opportunity, AI-powered identity threat detection and prevention tools are growing more common, enabling organizations to detect and stop attacks more quickly. For example, by using machine learning, ITDR solutions can create baseline models of normal user behavior, which they use to identify suspicious deviations that might constitute threats.