Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Every organization operates on a foundation of identity. Whether it’s a person logging into an app, an API connecting to a service, or a container spinning up in the cloud, every interaction begins with authentication. But here’s the shift most organizations are only starting to catch up to: machines now outnumber people by more than 80 to 1. These workloads and devices all depend on digital certificates to prove who they are. Those certificates are their identities.

Modernization rarely begins without a catalyst. For organizations managing machine identities, the CA/B Forum mandate is driving a wave of change—transforming compliance pressure into momentum for lasting modernization. For more than a decade, organizations have recognized that their machine identity operations are fragile. Manual renewals, siloed ownership, and spreadsheet-driven workflows were never built for the speed and scale of modern digital business.

Invisible or hidden risks often corrupt organizations inside out. These are hard to detect and go unnoticed for a prolonged period. Privilege Creep, one such hidden risk, is a silent security gap, where there is an accumulation of inessential access rights of employees over a period of time. This could pave the way for unauthorized access and breaches.

Managing external customer access in Jira Service Management (JSM) often seems straightforward, but it can create recurring problems for many teams: large volumes of spam tickets. When the customer portal allows anonymous submissions, bots and unsolicited traffic can freely enter the system, slowing support operations, affecting the customer experience, and introducing unnecessary security exposure. Teams usually see the same symptoms.

In the public sector, IT efficiency isn't just about convenience - it’s about fiscal responsibility and strict compliance. Government agencies often manage thousands of users across Jira, Confluence, and Jira Service Management (JSM). As these environments grow, so does the complexity of managing access.

The way teams browse, work, and share data has changed fast, and so have online threats. A Secure Web Gateway (SWG) gives you a smart, always-on filter between your users and the internet, blocking malicious sites, unsafe downloads, and risky behaviors before they cause damage. With cloud apps becoming the backbone of daily operations, an SWG ensures every web request is inspected, every threat is stopped, and every employee stays protected, whether they’re in the office or working remotely.

Managing 5,000+ identities across your enterprise? Each one is a potential entry point for attackers—and your IAM security is only as strong as your weakest access point. This is where the most effective IAM best practices and data-driven strategies come into play.

In this episode of Security Matters, host David Puner welcomes back David Higgins, senior director in CyberArk’s Field Technology Office, for a timely conversation about the evolving cyber threat landscape. Higgins explains why today’s attackers aren’t breaking in—they’re logging in—using stolen credentials, AI-powered social engineering, and deepfakes to bypass traditional defenses and exploit trust.

When I first joined CyberArk, it wasn’t just about the company or the technology, but a belief. A belief that identity security is the foundation of cybersecurity. Identity security is the unifying thread that ties together risk management, resilience, and trust in an era where identity—human, AI, and machine—has become the true perimeter of the enterprise. Every day, I see how this conviction plays out across industries and organizations.