Breaches now target credentials, not perimeters

As cyber threats evolve and perimeter defenses lose their effectiveness, identities, both human and machine, have become the primary targets for threat actors in today's zero trust security environment, according to IT Brief New Zealand.

Rather than breaching firewalls, attackers now seek out credentials to gain access and move laterally within networks. This shift highlights critical oversights in identity management, such as unclear ownership of machine identities, over-assignment of access privileges, and insecure storage of secrets like API keys and passwords. Experts stress the importance of assigning clear identity ownership, enforcing least privilege access, and using secure secrets management systems. Additionally, multifactor authentication remains a key layer of protection for human accounts, even as its effectiveness depends on implementation. With remote work and cloud services proliferating, every point of access requires identity-based security controls. The report concludes that identity has become the new security perimeter, and any failure to manage it properly exposes organizations to serious and avoidable risks..