New SailPoint Research Highlights Need for Stronger Identity Security in Financial Services

Original Article

AUSTIN, TX – March 8, 2023 – SailPoint Technologies, Inc., a leader in enterprise identity security, today released “The state of identity security 2023: A spotlight on financial services,” a comprehensive report highlighting the increased need for strong identity security in the financial service industry. The report found that while a growing number of financial services firms are prioritizing identity security, attacks remain dangerously commonplace, with 93% of respondents reporting that they have experienced a breach within the past two years.

The report includes a number of encouraging findings, including 100% of respondents indicating that identity security is either a relatively important, critical, or number one investment priority within the organization. Furthermore, 56% of those surveyed indicated that their organization has fully implemented an identity security program, with 29% stating that their program has been in place for at least two years. These numbers reflect the growing prioritization of identity security across the financial services sector…

The Cyber Hut Comment: This recent Sailpoint whitepaper (registration required) has a focus on the finserv sector. The number of 93% - referring to the respondents who have experienced a breach - is not too enlightening. I think in today’s modern digital ecosystem, data breaches, account take over, fraud and other (typically automated) cyber ecrime attacks follow successful digital transformation (DX) projects. If you have a large online presence, with large numbers of legitimate users authenticating into cloud services to make purchases and process transactions, by design you will become a target for adversarial activity. The effort/reward ratios will be very much stacked in the favour of the attacker if they manage to develop an attack that can target a greater number of users, or indeed a greater return on their investment.