{"id":180251,"date":"2026-01-21T08:35:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T13:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/21\/identity-ranks-as-no-1-cybersecurity-threat-vector-ai-massively-compounds-the-risk-permiso-research-finds\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T08:43:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T13:43:23","slug":"identity-ranks-as-no-1-cybersecurity-threat-vector-ai-massively-compounds-the-risk-permiso-research-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/21\/identity-ranks-as-no-1-cybersecurity-threat-vector-ai-massively-compounds-the-risk-permiso-research-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Identity Ranks as No. 1 Cybersecurity Threat Vector; AI Massively Compounds the Risk, Permiso Research Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Identity Ranks as No. 1 Cybersecurity Threat Vector; AI Massively Compounds the Risk, Permiso Research Finds<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/aijourn.com\/identity-ranks-as-no-1-cybersecurity-threat-vector-ai-massively-compounds-the-risk-permiso-research-finds\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-01-21 08:35:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: aijourn.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. <\/p>\n

Third annual survey finds gaping identity-security holes & increasing risks
\nPALO ALTO, Calif.\u2013(BUSINESS WIRE)\u2013Identity-related attacks were the dominant threat vector in 2025 with 76% of organizations saying they accounted for up to 50% of security incidents, indicates a report released today by Permiso Security, the leading identity security company. The rest of the organizations said more than half of their security incidents were identity related.<\/p>\n

Identity-related attacks occur when malicious actors attempt or succeed in accessing company or organizational data and systems\u2014not by breaking through firewalls\u2014but by logging in via compromised credentials of current and past employees, third-party vendors, and non-human identities, such as AI agents.<\/p>\n

The Permiso State of Identity Security 2026 report is based on a survey of 512 organizations worldwide. The results reveal gaping identity security holes and looming AI-related risks ahead. Key findings include:<\/p>\n

Only 46% of organizations have comprehensive visibility into all identities operating within their environment, which hampers their ability to detect and respond to threats.<\/p>\n

Only 43% can detect identity-based risks before incidents occur\u2014which means they cannot stop them.<\/p>\n

Only 29% of organizations can detect blast radius within minutes. The rest take hours or days\u2014giving attackers time to move laterally and exfiltrate data.<\/p>\n

95% of organizations say AI systems can now create or modify identities without traditional human oversight\u2014which vastly increases the attack surface.<\/p>\n

Almost 4 in 10 survey respondents said AI systems have access to 26% to 50% of their sensitive data. That\u2019s customer records, financial data, and trade secrets being processed by systems that operate outside traditional security controls.<\/p>\n

\u201cOrganizations are deploying AI systems faster than they can secure them, granting access faster than they can track it, and generating identities faster than they can manage them,\u201d said Paul Nguyen, Co-CEO of Permiso Security. \u201cMost organizations don\u2019t have visibility into which AI systems have access, what permissions they hold, or what they\u2019re doing with the data they can access. These are non-human identities on steroids, with access patterns that traditional monitoring can\u2019t detect.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cost of Fragmentation<\/p>\n

Companies know they need to act. More than 7 in 10 say better identity visibility could have prevented 26% to 75% of their security incidents, the survey found. Also, almost 9 of 10 plan to increase identity security investment in 2026.<\/p>\n

Organizations have a long way to go. Three quarters of the surveyed organizations use 3-10 separate tools just for identity visibility, which creates gaps. They have the worst visibility into SaaS environments, where most critical applications reside, and third-party vendors are a fast-rising threat after employees in terms of risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cOrganizations keep asking us for faster threat detection,\u201d said Jason Martin, Co-CEO at Permiso Security. \u201cBut when we dig into what\u2019s slowing them down, it\u2019s always the same answer: fragmented visibility. You can\u2019t detect what you can\u2019t see, and you can\u2019t respond quickly when you\u2019re spending hours correlating data manually. The fastest path to better detection isn\u2019t better detection tools. It\u2019s unified visibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

AI is compounding the challenges. Non-human identities\u2014AI agents, access tokens, etc.,\u2014are experiencing \u201cexplosive growth,\u201d the report states. A full 95% of organizations express confidence in being able to track them but likely suffer \u201cfalse confidence.\u201d That\u2019s because, while they have records of the non-human identity, they likely lack visibility into how AI agents behave and what sensitive data they have access to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gap between what organizations believe they can see and what they actually control has never been wider,\u201d said Martin.<\/p>\n

When asked what capabilities would most improve their security posture, organizations prioritized real-time threat detection and unified cross-platform visibility over additional point solutions.<\/p>\n

The full report, including detailed methodology and analytical frameworks, is available here.<\/p>\n

About Permiso<\/p>\n

Permiso is the leading cloud identity security platform that helps organizations discover, protect, and defend against identity threats across multi-cloud and hybrid environments. The company\u2019s innovative approach combines static configuration data with runtime intelligence to provide comprehensive visibility into human identities, non-human identities, vendor accounts, and now AI identities. Trusted by multiple Fortune 500 companies and some of the Las Vegas Strip\u2019s premier resorts and casinos, Permiso enables organizations to secure their identity fabric across the full spectrum of modern computing environments.<\/p>\n

For more information about Permiso and its AI security capabilities, explore our solutions or request a demo at [email\u00a0protected]
\n Contacts <\/p>\n

Whitney DeBenedictis[email\u00a0protected]<\/p>\n

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