Cyberattack preparation was analyzed in a recent report by the Identity Defined Security Alliance (IDSA). Forty-nine percent report that their leadership teams understand identity and security risks and proactively invest in protection before suffering an incident, while 29% only engage and support after an incident.

Organizations need to ensure only the right people have access to the right data, networks and systems and that they use technologies effective at preventing malicious actors from gaining access to sensitive information. Key research findings include:

• Top two barriers for security teams are identity frameworks being complicated by multiple vendors and different architectures (40%) and complex technology environments (39%).
• Respondents also identified insufficient budget (30%), a lack of expertise (29%), standards (26%), people (25%) and governance (23%) as barriers.
• 49% of identity stakeholders said their leadership teams understand identity and security risks and proactively invest in protection prior to an incident.
• 89% of businesses are somewhat or very concerned that new privacy regulations will impact identity security.
• 98% of respondents report artificial intelligence and machine learning will be beneficial in addressing identity-related challenges, with 63% stating the number one use case is identifying outlier behaviors.
• Social media is a key concern for businesses, with 90% saying they were slightly or very worried about employees using corporate credentials for their social media accounts.