Identity threats have become one of the top security challenges facing organizations, thanks to the expanding use of SaaS applications. As enterprises increasingly rely on cloud-based tools, both human and non-human identities, such as service accounts, APIs, and automated workflows, are proliferating across SaaS environments.
Cybercriminals are now focusing their efforts on exploiting identity-based vulnerabilities, knowing that a single compromised credential can provide access to a wealth of sensitive data. While most organizations have some form of identity management solution, that may not be enough to protect systems, data, and users.
A recent report by the Identity Defined Security Alliance found that 90% of organizations experienced at least one identity-related security incident in the past year, highlighting the growing focus of attackers on identity exploitation. Credential compromise remains the leading method for cybercriminals to gain initial access, emphasizing the critical need for robust identity security measures, according to Verizon’s 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report.
Recent breaches have highlighted the severity of identity-based threats. The 2023 Okta breach demonstrated how attackers can leverage stolen credentials to infiltrate enterprise environments. Bad actors gained unauthorized access to multiple SaaS applications, impacting the company’s approximately 18,000 customers.
While valuable, static identity access management (IAM) frameworks are not designed to handle the complex and dynamic nature of identity threats. Also, while human identities are typically governed by IAM solutions, non-human identities often lack the same level of oversight, making them prime targets for attackers.
This means rethinking how to approach identity security. Without the advanced monitoring, threat detection, and rapid response capabilities delivered by an identity threat and response (ITDR) solution, organizations risk falling victim to identity-based attacks that can quickly escalate into full-scale security breaches.
IAM: The limitations of traditional identity management
The upside of IAM solutions is that they centralize identity management, helping organizations manage large numbers of user identities and permissions across various applications. This simplifies administrative tasks, reduces overhead, and helps organizations meet regulatory compliance requirements by providing audit logs, enforcing access policies, and improving visibility into user activities.
IAM solutions excel in core functionalities, including:
- User authentication: Ensures that only verified users gain access to sensitive systems and applications by requiring credentials such as passwords, biometrics, or multi-factor authentication (MFA). Strong authentication measures prevent unauthorized access attempts and significantly reduce the risk of credential-based attacks.
- Access control: Manages and enforces user permissions based on roles, responsibilities, and security policies. By implementing least privilege access (LPA) principles, organizations can limit exposure to critical systems and ensure that users only have access to the resources necessary for their job functions, reducing the potential damage from misconfigured or over-provisioned accounts.
- Compliance reporting: Provides audit logs, access records, and policy enforcement reports to meet regulatory requirements and industry standards. Ensuring compliance with frameworks such as GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC 2 helps organizations maintain transparency, demonstrate security diligence, and quickly address potential security gaps or violations.
In addition, a traditional identity management solution enables seamless onboarding and offboarding processes for users, which greatly enhances productivity and administrative efficiency. There’s another reason this is essential: at 20% of organizations, former employees still have access to SaaS applications after leaving the company. Still, IAM solutions can’t determine if someone has been offboarded; if IT isn’t informed in a timely manner, former employees may still retain access privileges.
Why IAM struggles with dynamic identity threats
IAM solutions don’t actively monitor for identity-based threats, leaving organizations exposed to more sophisticated attacks that rely on behavioral anomalies, privilege escalation, and stolen session tokens. More concerning, IAM systems primarily focus on human identities, while non-human identities—such as service accounts, bots, and API keys—often operate outside the visibility of traditional security controls.
This blind spot creates security risks, as these identities frequently have high levels of access and can be exploited by attackers to move laterally within an organization.
IAM primarily focuses on static policy enforcement and predefined access controls, lacking the capability to adapt dynamically to rapidly changing threat landscapes. This limitation means a conventional identity management solution can’t adequately recognize or respond to sophisticated threats in real time, leaving gaps attackers can exploit. But there’s more to the issue than the inability to provide continuous identity monitoring.
A key missing piece: behavioral analytics
Behavioral analytics is critical in identifying suspicious deviations from normal user activity, such as unusual login locations, inconsistent access times, or unauthorized privilege escalations. Unlike traditional IAM, behavioral analytics continuously learns and adapts to user behaviors, flagging anomalies that could indicate account compromise or insider threats.
By monitoring how identities interact with SaaS applications over time, behavioral analytics can detect subtle threats that may go unnoticed by predefined IAM policies. This includes identifying patterns indicative of credential stuffing, brute force attacks, or even compromised non-human identities such as service accounts that suddenly request access to restricted data.
Without this layer of intelligence, a conventional identity management solution remains reactive rather than proactive, increasing the chances of prolonged exposure to undetected threats. This means attackers can leverage compromised accounts unnoticed, gaining sustained access to critical resources.
Key vulnerabilities overlooked by IAM systems
While IAM systems are designed primarily to enforce policies based on known parameters, attackers frequently exploit unexpected or subtle vulnerabilities. Because these threats often manifest as deviations from typical behavior rather than outright violations of set rules, IAM solutions struggle to effectively identify and mitigate them.
Critical threats that IAM systems typically fail to detect include:
- Phishing & social engineering: Attackers manipulate users into revealing sensitive information or credentials. These attacks often take the form of fake emails or messages impersonating trusted entities over trusted channels, tricking users into clicking malicious links or sharing login details. For example, attackers used a phishing campaign to compromise Microsoft 365 accounts, gaining unauthorized access to sensitive corporate data.
- Credential stuffing: Automated attacks using breached credentials from other sites to access multiple accounts. Attackers test stolen login credentials at scale to gain access. Gaming platforms are a growing target, as bad actors can capture credit card information and resell accounts on the dark web.
- Session hijacking: Attackers intercept or take control of active user sessions. By stealing session tokens, attackers can avoid authentication measures and impersonate legitimate users. The “Citrix Bleed” vulnerability that affected certain cloud appliances allowed cybercriminals to hijack legitimate user sessions, bypassing both password and multi-factor authentication (MFA) protections.
- Supply chain attacks: Compromised third-party services or partners are used to infiltrate organizations. In 2024, a supply chain attack targeted a GitHub Action, used in over 23,000 repositories, to access and leak proprietary source code.
- Insider threats & privilege abuse: Employees or contractors with elevated permissions can intentionally or unintentionally expose sensitive data. In early 2024, a disgruntled employee at a major healthcare provider was found to have exfiltrated patient records by exploiting their privileged access, demonstrating the ongoing risks posed by insider threats.
IAM alone lacks real-time threat detection and actionable incident response mechanisms, so they can’t effectively detect the subtle indicators of compromise inherent in these threats. A traditional identity management solution also struggles with accurately distinguishing between legitimate, but unusual user behavior and malicious actions, particularly when attackers employ tactics such as slow and deliberate lateral movement within a compromised environment.
Organizations depending solely on a traditional IAM face higher risks of prolonged breaches, as attackers can operate unnoticed within compromised accounts for extended periods.
Containing the risks of third-party SaaS applications
As businesses expand their SaaS ecosystems, they increasingly rely on third-party applications to enhance productivity, collaboration, and automation. While these integrations offer efficiency, each third-party SaaS application represents a potential entry point for attackers, especially if these apps request excessive permissions or lack proper oversight.
A recent example of a third-party identity threat occurred in October 2024, when Truist Bank suffered a data breach due to a security compromise at Financial Business and Consumer Solutions, Inc. (FBCS), a third-party debt collection service provider. This incident exposed sensitive customer information and underscored the risks associated with relying on external vendors for critical business functions.
One of the biggest challenges organizations face is the proliferation of OAuth connections, where employees unknowingly grant broad access to external applications. Many of these third-party apps retain persistent access to sensitive corporate data long after they are needed, creating an unseen attack surface that traditional Identity threat detection tools fail to monitor. Attackers exploit these connections to move laterally within an organization, exfiltrating data or hijacking accounts.
Additionally, poorly secured third-party vendors can serve as a backdoor into an organization’s SaaS environment. Supply chain attacks targeting widely used business applications have surged, with cybercriminals leveraging weak security in third-party software to compromise their customers. Without continuous identity monitoring and risk assessment, businesses remain blind to these vulnerabilities, leaving them exposed to potential breaches.
The rise of identity-based SaaS attacks
Microsoft reports that 600 million identity attacks occur every day, and 99% of them are password-based. As SaaS adoption continues to surge, so does the risk of identity-based threats, for two key reasons:
- SaaS platforms have exponentially increased organizational attack surfaces, leading attackers to pivot away from perimeter defenses toward SaaS identity vulnerabilities.
- More SaaS apps in use means an expanded set of identities and privileges to manage and monitor; this identity sprawl complicates the ability of security teams to identify vulnerabilities quickly and confidently.
The spate of recent breaches clearly demonstrates the increasing effectiveness and frequency of identity-based attacks against SaaS platforms, highlighting the urgent need for enhanced security solutions beyond a traditional identity management solution.
ITDR: The solution to identity-based threats
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) is a cybersecurity framework specifically designed to detect, investigate, and respond to threats that exploit digital identities in cloud-first environments. As identity has become the new perimeter in SaaS-driven organizations, ITDR provides a structured approach to continuously evaluate identity behaviors, uncover anomalies, and contain potential breaches in real time.
This framework builds on established threat detection methodologies, such as MITRE ATT&CK, and adapts them to focus on identity-centric tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).
ITDR also complements broader Zero Trust and Extended Detection Response (XDR) strategies by embedding identity telemetry and response mechanisms directly into the security stack. This ensures that identity, whether human or non-human, is treated as a critical threat vector, not just a governance or access control concern.
Unlike traditional identity threat detection tools that rely on static policies, ITDR solutions continuously monitor identity behaviors, detect anomalies, and respond rapidly to potential threats in real time.
ITDR explained
Compared to a conventional identity management solution, ITDR works by aggregating identity-related data from SaaS platforms, applying behavioral analytics to uncover signs of compromise, and enabling automated responses that reduce the time to detect and contain threats.
This real-time insight into both human and non-human identity activity is essential in an era where credential compromise, session hijacking, and privilege escalation are increasingly common.
Compared to IAM alone, ITDR offers a number of crucial advantages:
- Real-time monitoring of identity behaviors across SaaS applications, enabling faster detection of unusual activity.
- Detection of sophisticated attack patterns beyond simple login attempts, including lateral movement and insider threats.
- Incident response automation to immediately contain compromised accounts, revoke access, and reduce dwell time.
Not all ITDR solutions are equal; neither are Identity threat detection and response vendors. There are key elements that can make one more suitable for a given organization’s approach to identity management and security.
Key capabilities for ITDR solutions
Effective ITDR solutions offer several essential features designed to address the gaps left by IAM systems. ITDR provides enhanced visibility, detection, and response capabilities tailored to securing both human and non-human identities across SaaS environments. Wing Security’s ITDR platform delivers comprehensive SaaS identity security through:
Comprehensive SaaS identity monitoring:
Monitoring identities across SaaS applications is essential for preventing unauthorized access and detecting compromised accounts before they can be exploited. ITDR solutions ensure visibility into both human and non-human identities, reducing blind spots that attackers could leverage. Key attributes include:
- Deep visibility: Utilizes non-intrusive API integration to gain extensive visibility into the entire SaaS ecosystem, including Shadow IT, app-to-app connectivity (non-human identities), and users (human identities).
- Continuous tracking: Monitors both human and non-human identities across SaaS applications, ensuring that no entity is overlooked. By continuously tracking identity threats helps identify compromised accounts and shadow identities, thereby reducing risks associated with identity misuse.
Advanced identity-based attack detection:
A traditional identity management solution often fails to detect sophisticated identity threats such as privilege escalation and lateral movement. ITDR solutions apply behavioral analytics and correlation techniques to uncover these hidden attack patterns. Such capabilities include:
- Behavioral analytics: We implement User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) to detect anomalies in identity behavior, such as unauthorized use of non-human identities like compromised API tokens or exploited service accounts. This proactive detection prevents attackers from leveraging these identities as entry points.
- Attack path correlation: Wing Security’s ITDR uses MITRE ATT&CK mapping to correlate identity-based security events, providing visibility into complex threats and enabling proactive threat mitigation.
Context-rich alerts & risk prioritization:
One of the biggest challenges security teams face is distinguishing between legitimate activities and real threats. ITDR enriches alerts with contextual data, allowing teams to prioritize the most urgent security risks effectively. Features that enable this include:
- Tailored threat intelligence: Offers a threat intelligence “newsfeed” customized to the organization’s SaaS ecosystem, identifying and prioritizing relevant threats with practical recommendations for quick remediation.
- Dynamic risk scoring: Aggregates fragmented SaaS logs and applies dynamic confidence scoring, including behavior analytics, to detect anomalies in identity behavior. This prioritizes legitimate threats and minimizes alert fatigue from false positives.
Faster investigation & response:
Security incidents require swift, decisive action to minimize damage. By automating your security policy, effective ITDR solutions reduce the time it takes to detect, analyze, and contain threats. These capabilities include:
- Automated remediation: Streamlines security through predefined policies and automated remediation workflows, such as revoking OAuth access in bulk, to maintain a secure environment.
- Structured incident timelines: Transforms scattered alerts into a structured, easy-to-read report, reducing investigation time and simplifying incident reporting processes.
By incorporating these capabilities, Wing Security’s ITDR addresses existing identity risks and significantly enhances operational efficiency, empowering SOC teams to manage identity-based threats effectively.
Take steps to strengthen your identity security now
It’s clear that while traditional IAM systems have their place in a complete security strategy, they are insufficient against emerging identity-based threats. Organizations must adopt comprehensive ITDR solutions capable of real-time monitoring, sophisticated anomaly detection, and rapid automated responses. Also, security leaders need to choose among the Identity Threat Detection and Response vendors to determine which one is best suited to their environment and security goals.
Identity-based threats are growing too quickly to risk delaying any further. Wing Security’s ITDR solution is built to plug the holes in traditional IAM and lift the burden of finding and prioritizing identity threats from SOC teams.