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Identity-based attacks aren’t slowing down. In fact, they’ve become the #1 attack vector in security breaches, and businesses are paying the price. Attackers exploit stolen credentials, circumvent authentication methods, and impersonate users to gain unauthorized access— without triggering alerts from Identity and Access Management (IAM) products.
Organizations may use SIEM and SOC platforms to capture authentication events, but these tools are not designed to proactively detect identity threats. As a result, IT and security teams often react too late to security breaches if they identify them at all. This leads to breaches, lateral attacks, data exfiltration, business disruption, and a heavy drain on security resources and budget.
So, what’s the true cost of identity-based breaches? And more importantly, how can businesses stop them before they happen?
When an attacker successfully compromises a user account, the clock starts ticking. The longer they have access, the more damage they can cause. Unfortunately, most organizations aren’t detecting these breaches fast enough or at all.
According to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024, it can take an average of 292 days to identify and contain breaches that originated from compromised credentials. That’s nearly 10 months where attackers can move laterally, escalate privileges, and exfiltrate data—all while remaining undetected.
Cybercriminals aren't just stealing credentials, they're imitating user behavior. Traditional security tools struggle to flag these attacks especially when attackers use legitimate login credentials. Without a threat detection solution that leverages identity intelligence and behavioral analytics, these threats slip through the cracks.
Detecting a breach fast dramatically lowers the impact. Real-time detection can lower that impact to zero. Businesses need early warning systems that detect unusual identity activity before attackers have time to wreak havoc. .
The cost of a breach isn’t just about remediation—it’s about long-term financial, operational, and reputational damage.
Beyond direct financial losses, incident response and recovery drain precious IT resources. Security teams spend weeks and months investigating, restoring systems, and implementing post-breach fixes—all while trying to prevent future attacks. A reactive security approach is extremely expensive and unsustainable—preventative identity threat detection pays for its value 10x over.
To combat identity-based threats, organizations need to shift from reactive security to proactive detection. This is where Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) comes in to address the IAM prevention gap that attackers frequently exploit.
ITDR solutions focus on stopping attackers in real-time with automated detection and remediation—before cybercriminals have a chance to cause harm. With AI-driven behavioral analytics and identity intelligence, ITDR solutions can:
ITDR works with your existing IAM solution to add early warning signals and automated workflows to stop attackers from account compromise and the damage that can occur afterwards.
Identity-based breaches are not just expensive—they’re preventable. Increasingly, the risks and costs of remaining vulnerable to identity based attacks is no longer sustainable. ITDR provides the proactive, real-time defense to limit identity-based attacks and prevent their downstream damage while also reducing security costs and resources.
Read the full Executive Brief to learn more: IT Executive Brief
