There are serious gaps in organisations’ ability to combat rising identity threats as artificial intelligence increases the complexity of the risks.

Data management, cybersecurity, and platform modernisation operation Quest Software, has published the released findings from its annual global security survey examining how organisations approach Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR).

The State of ITDR survey questioned 650 top global IT and security executives and practitioners about their approach to ITDR amid a rise in AI-driven attacks, an increase in non-human identities, growing recovery risk, new and changing regulatory environments, and managing expanding attack surfaces. It found that more than 75 percent of organisations are not practicing disaster recovery plans in the recommended six-month timeframe, while 24 percent state they never practice it at all.

Quest said identity has become the primary attack surface, and the sprawl of identities across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments have expanded organisations’ need to better protect their environments. This has created complications with the rise of AI-led attacks, including model theft, automated attacks, poisoning data, and more leading to a 57 percent increase in security incidents linked to AI usage, according to a Microsoft study. The rapid growth of non-human identities has frequently outpaced visibility and guidance, making it even more difficult for organizations to manage identity security, with an estimated 82:1 ratio of machine identities to human identities.

The survey key findings include:

• Only 24 percent of organizations test disaster recovery every six months, as recommended, with another 24 percent stating they never test their plans.
• 79 percent of those surveyed are confident that AI tools can improve ITDR effectiveness.
• In a multiple-choice selection, 51 percent of respondents said that non-human identities were the most difficult to secure, with 49 percent claiming third party and partner accounts, 47 percent stating service accounts, and 46 percent saying legacy systems, highlighting the expansion of identity areas to secure.
• 78 percent of respondents said that proactive threat management was the main driver for implementing ITDR.

The survey revealed that since last year, more organizations now have an ITDR practice in place, with 57 percent of respondents saying they did compared to 48 percent a year ago. Similarly, there was an increase in organisations receiving benefits from ITDR, with 92 percent agreeing to the benefits of an ITDR practice, compared to 84 percent in last year’s survey.

“Our survey findings make one point abundantly clear: identity security challenges are broad, interconnected, and steadily growing,” said Michael Laudon, chief product and technology officer, Quest Software. “Identity systems are at the centre of most environments, connecting users, applications, data, automation, and cloud services. When those systems are compromised, attackers gain immediate access and, in many cases, control over how quickly an organisation can respond and recover. Many organisations still lack full visibility into their identity landscape and struggle to manage expanding workloads across hybrid environments, and most teams are not validating recovery often enough to ensure rapid restoration after an attack.”