3 Machine Identity Management Trends to Watch Out for in 2022

With the growing cybercrime cases, what are some machine identity management trends to watch for in 2022? In this article, Murali Palanisamy, chief solutions officer, AppViewX, discusses a few things to watch for in the coming year.

If the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) cannot avoid the clutches of cybersecurity thieves and attacks, what organization can?

Hackers compromised the email system sending out thousands of fake warning messages that say its recipients have become the victim of a “sophisticated chain attack.”Opens a new window The emails were signed off by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), making them all the more seemingly reliable. 

This security breach within the FBI, one of the most heavily protected organizations and part of the Department of Justice (DOJ), has attested to the urgent need to strengthen cybersecurity standardizations worldwide. 

There has been an acceleration in ransomware attacks in recent years and will continue in the years to come. Don’t lose your calm, as the best innovations are born in crisis, and history can prove it. Gartner’s Hype Cycle for identity and access management (IAM) 2021Opens a new window emphasizes the maturation of innovations that deliver risk management, security and business value for the customer and workforce.   

With this, organizations have reprioritized cyber resilience to deal with sophisticated attacks and severe outages. Gear up for 2022 with the following machine identity management trends. 

1. Adopting the Zero Trust Model

As per the conventional security models, all devices inside the company’s network are safe and can be implicitly trusted. Such blindfolded trust is detrimental for your business, and this epiphany has paved the way for businesses to adopt the Zero Trust Security model. Verification of digital identities on your network is pivotal to a Zero Trust strategy. 

However, many organizations continue to remain satisfied with the verification of user identities, which is limited. Some organizations have started inculcating the Zero Trust Security model with segmentation, implementation of privilege access model (PAM), multifactor authentication (MFA), and security analytics. 

Unfortunately, organizations are overlooking one key area: managing machine identities. With the pandemic accelerating digital transformation efforts everywhere, there’s been an explosion in the number of machines, such as workloads, code, applications and containers, making it nearly impossible to manage manually. Errors related to machine identity management such as expired certificates, compromised or fake certificates, weak cipher suites and keys contribute to severe business losses and compromised brand value.Opens a new window  

An end-to-end automated certificate lifecycle management solution is the need of the hour. Organizations that embrace automation, such as a next-gen certificate lifecycle automation solution, will enhance security posture.

See More: 5 Cybersecurity Trends Companies Need To Understand in 2022 and Beyond

2. Combating Heightened Security Risks, DDoS Attacks and Cloud Security Vulnerabilities

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks send multiple requests to the targeted web source, aiming to bombard the capacity of the website to handle multiple requests, thus rendering the website inoperable. 

Tech giants have fallen victim to DDoS attacks. Google, for example, experienced a DDoS attack back in 2017. This year, the victim was Facebook, losing about $65 million over outages lasting for hours. Today, enterprises are facing heightened security risks. Deadly cyberattacks and security threats are making the news headlines every passing day. 

Besides DDoS, cloud security has also become a matter of concern. It is not the cloud but also the lack of understanding about the cloud security model, which contributes to the failure to achieve operational agility and potent cybersecurity threats. 

Many organizations make the mistake of extending their on-premise security solutions to the cloud. This isn’t the right approach because moving data and applications to the cloud has surpassed the network perimeter, which the traditional cybersecurity model was designed to protect. 

For 2022 and years to come, reinforcing machine identity management and implementation of a zero trust framework would be critical for securing multicloud and hybrid cloud environments.

See More: 4 Security Questions to Ask About Your Salesforce Application

3. Embracing Contextual Awareness, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in Machine Identity Management

Context delivers valuable data insights critical for strengthening an organization’s security approach. Data analysis is crucial to detect anomalies and possible threats. Organizations need to invest in an intelligent automation solution for the seamless management of machine identities. 

Before automating the workflow, start by checking the device’s state, performance, capacity, etc., thus preventing the common problems of automation collisions. As cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated, you need innovative tools with advanced AI and ML capabilities to fight against security threats. 

Adding ML capabilities with IAM solutions helps you identify the “right individual” who should be granted access to certain applications and the right resources for the particular individual. AI-based tools bake in a high degree of security provided by strong machine identity management and access controls. 

Organizations can detect potential threats easily with AI-based analysis of time, place and user movement. Thorough surveillance of interactions and data analytics help measure the level of potential risk at every point. 

Securing Machine Identities in 2022 and Beyond

As we look back at 2021 lessons, from SolarWinds to GoDaddy, we’ve learned an incredible amount about why machine identity lies core to cybersecurity. Looking to 2022, organizations must be well prepared to put up a strong fight against cyberattacks. With sophisticated cybercriminals smothering a good night’s sleep of CISOs around the world, it is high time to go beyond the traditional security standards and re-imagine the security of machine-to-machine communications. 

Did you find this article helpful? Tell us what you think on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We’d be thrilled to hear from you.