Identity’s Role as a Strategic Risk Mitigation Tool

For large organizations operating in an uncertain world, a big picture view of risk is crucial.  Understanding and addressing the array of threats to operations brings stability of revenues, reputation, customer relationships and more.

Because this means considering everything from macro-economic trends and geopolitics to potential natural disasters – there was a time when technology risk had to fight for its place around the board table.  Thankfully, this is no longer the case, with hands being forced by the rapid rise of cybersecurity to the top of the agenda. 

The key thing to remember is that these conversations are had by a set of stakeholders whose primary lens is not technical.  By their very nature, a Risk Committee must filter a multitude of issues and translate them down to one base factor: their impact on the organization in question.

Because of this, cyber risk must also be boiled down to its simplest, most non-technical constituent parts – not always an easy task for a space defined by complexity and change. First, scenarios must be gamed, and their likely business impact assessed.  Only once this is understood can solutions be put forward and, crucially, their impact on resources calculated to determine if the outlay is warranted. 

While this is somewhat simplified – understanding this calculus is central to approaching risk strategically. No CISO or CIO is given a blank cheque and, with the attack surface in constant flux, this process helps them work out where they lay their chips for greatest impact.   

This equation is one of the reasons for me joining Silverfort – as I believe identity security can play a huge part in improving this equation.

Identity has been ubiquitously abused by attackers to move around environments for many years – a central route leading to everything from ransomware attacks to data breaches. Having visibility of this and closing it down with MFA greatly reduces exposure from the root cause of many attacks. In addition, by unifying a disparate array of identity technologies, Silverfort does this in a way which helps minimize resource outlay.

Both sides of the equation work.   

As someone who has been involved in technology for 40 years, I have seen many changes first-hand.  Driven by technological innovation, I believe we are seeing identity security starting to own its role in strategic risk mitigation – something I am looking forward to helping organizations achieve with Silverfort.