Security News > 2022 > April > Unmanaged and unsecured digital identities are driving rise in cybersecurity debt

A global report released by CyberArk shows that 79% of senior security professionals state that cybersecurity has taken a back seat in the last year in favor of accelerating other digital business initiatives.

The report identifies how the rise of human and machine identities - often running into the hundreds of thousands per organization - has driven a buildup of identity-related cybersecurity debt, exposing organizations to greater cybersecurity risk.

Every major IT or digital initiative results in increasing interactions between people, applications and processes, creating large numbers of digital identities.

The average staff member has greater than 30 digital identities.

Machine identities now outweigh human identities by a factor of 45x on average.

"Spending on digital transformation projects has skyrocketed in recent years to meet the demands of changed customer and workforce requirements," Udi Mokady, chairman and CEO, CyberArk. "The combination of an expanding attack surface, rising numbers of identities and behind-the-curve investment in cybersecurity - what we call cybersecurity debt - is exposing organizations to even greater risk, which is already elevated by ransomware threats and vulnerabilities across the software supply chain. This threat environment requires a security-first approach to protecting identities, one capable of outpacing attacker innovation."

News URL

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/04/15/cybersecurity-debt-risk/