By Byron V. Acohido

The world of Identity and Access Management (IAM) is rapidly evolving.

Related: Stopping IAM threats

IAM began 25 years ago as a method to systematically grant human users access to company IT assets. Today, a “user” most often is a snippet of code seeking access at the cloud edge.

At the RSAC Conference 2023, I sat down with Venkat Raghavan, founder and CEO of start-up Stack Identity. As Raghavan explained, the rapid growth of data and subsequent application development in the cloud has led to a sprawling array of identities and access points. This, he warned, has created a new problem: shadow access.

Shadow access refers to ungoverned and unauthorized access that arises due to the speed and automation of cloud deployment.For a drill down, please give the accompanying podcast a listen.

Guest expert: Venkat Raghavan, CEO, Stack Identity

Stack Identity’s solution quickly onboards a customer’s cloud accounts, methodically identifies potential pathways to data and comprehensively assesses risk. Once all human and non-human access points are identified, automated remediation kicks in to eliminate shadow access.

Notably, this process happens at runtime, watching access in real-time, and looking at how access is utilized, Raghavan told me. “We have seen that in live customer environments that over 50 percent of identities are over-permissioned and should have access permissions revoked,” he says.”This represents a substantial risk for companies.”

This risk is material; just ask Capital One or LastPass. Here’s another example of directing ML and automation at shrinking the attack surface. Stack Identity emerged from stealth just last month with $4 million in seed funding. I’ll keep watch and keep reporting.

Acohido

Pulitzer Prize-winning business journalist Byron V. Acohido is dedicated to fostering public awareness about how to make the Internet as private and secure as it ought to be.

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(LW provides consulting services to the vendors we cover.)

May 31st, 2023