Rising identity complexity: How CISOs can prevent it from becoming an attacker’s roadmap

The New Stack

by Jay Reddy

February 19, 2026

AI-Generated Deep Dive Summary

The rise of identity complexity in modern enterprises has become a critical challenge for cybersecurity leaders, particularly as attackers increasingly exploit these vulnerabilities to infiltrate systems. Identity, once confined to static employee accounts with usernames and passwords, now encompasses a diverse array of entities including contractors, machines, bots, APIs, cloud workloads, and SaaS integrations. This explosion of identity types and their dynamic nature has created a sprawling attack surface that spans on-premises directories, cloud platforms like Azure AD and AWS IAM, Okta tenants, and numerous third-party applications. As identities multiply and permissions change frequently based on roles or projects, misconfigurations, privilege creep, and overlapping entitlements become common, leaving organizations vulnerable to credential misuse and lateral movement. The shift in identity management has transformed Identity Access Management (IAM) from an operational tool for account provisioning and password enforcement into a critical defense mechanism. Attackers are leveraging techniques like credential dumping, MFA fatigue, and living-off-the-land tactics to breach systems. Recent high-profile breaches, such as the Snowflake incident involving UNC5537, highlight how attackers exploit stolen credentials and lack of multi-factor authentication to compromise customer environments. These incidents underscore the urgent need for CISOs to prioritize IAM as a defense layer, focusing on rapid

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Originally published on The New Stack on 2/19/2026