When a potential breach becomes a concrete threat, the speed and efficacy of your response matter. According to IBM, the average cost of a data breach in 2023 was 4.45 million -- a 15% increase over the previous three years. Identity is central to preventing these costly outcomes, and it can play a powerful role in detecting and mitigating attacks if bad actors enter private systems using stolen credentials.

But in many cases, security and IT leaders fail to pay enough attention to the post-authentication measures needed to thwart would-be attackers, preferring to focus on the act of authentication. This overemphasis on the moment of attack ignores opportunities beforeand afterauthentication to mitigate damage and prevent attacks from advancing to the authentication stage in the first place.

To provide their organizations with the strongest possible defense against the rising tide of sophisticated threats, security leaders need to adopt a more holistic approach to Identity-powered security -- one that mitigates threats before, during, and afterauthentication-based attacks.

Today, we'll focus on the post-authentication measures that security leaders should prioritize to maximize the strength of their Identity security: detecting and responding to potential attacks.

The need for a unified solution

Some organizations manage the post-authentication aspects of their security posture through a network of individual point solutions geared toward specific functions. For example, they may use one solution for authentication protocols like multi-factor authenticationFA and single sign-on and a completely different solution for threat detection and mitigation.

The problem with this approach is that these point solutions rarely integrate with one another to the degree necessary for holistic Identity and Access Management. When threat signals are siloed away into different systems and applications (each managed by a different team and with different permissioning structures), security leaders can't detect and respond to potential threats with sufficient speed.

Far from insulating the organization from threat, the distributed authority and information siloes inherent to these legacy solutions can actually exacerbate the damage done by a serious breach. A unified approach to Workforce Identity resolves this by delivering a comprehensive, intuitive, and secure means of tackling the two most important pre-authentication security priorities

1. Detecting potential threats quickly
2. Automating responses to potential threats

A better way to detect and respond to potential threats

Strong threat mitigation begins with a comprehensive plan to detect and evaluate threats across an organization's security infrastructure. A unified approach to Identity gives security and IT teams

• A full toolkit that leverages first- and third-party signals to continuously evaluate risk throughout the organization and flag potential Identity-related threats as they emerge
• AI-powered risk scores (generated from risk signals across different tools and systems) that determine the Identity health of individual users and the organizational environment at large
• Real-time analysis of at-risk users, access violations, and potential misconfigurations that could lead to vulnerabilities

Once a potential threat is detected, security leaders need an automated response strategy capable of stopping potential breaches in their tracks. A unified approach to Identity gives security and IT teams

• Risk-based automation across users, applications, and devices that can make instantaneous, contextual decisions about terminating access
• The option to universally log out users based on risk signals
• Step-up MFA options that correlate to elevated risk
• Streamlined, automated SecOps response measures, including access reviews

Okta makes it possible

Okta Workforce Identity Cloud unifies digital security management across every aspect of Identity, including detecting and responding to potential threats. Interested in learning more? Check out our blogs on the unified response to authand pre-auth security.

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