According to Verizon's data breach investigation report, 81% of breaches are caused by compromised usernames and passwords. If you've got an email in the past year about a compromised password, you're probably part of the statistic. Basically, identity is the universal key to unlocking access to data, applications, systems, and more. So, our identity is the most important thing for an organization to protect. Therefore, identities are a constant target for cybercriminals. They want access to the key. In the past year, organizations saw a 300% increase in identity-related attacks. That is a huge increase from last year.

What happens once a malicious actor has compromised your identity?

In many cases, they can log into the device as you and take control. They can log into apps and collect your data. It's not just threats. Identity is also the key to unlocking productivity and making sure that your organization complies with regulations. That's where identity and access management or IAM comes in. IAM is a platform that enables the right people to securely access the right resources without impacting their productivity. There are many ways IAM works to protect you. Like enabling strong authentication to verify identity and prevent breaches with multi-factor authentication or MFA.

According to Microsoft's research, turning on MFA authentication is the simplest way to reduce the risk of compromise by 99.9%. That's really secure and really easy for you to turn on. Enforced conditional access with intelligent policies that ensure only the right people with the right resources on a secure device can access your data where they are. Grant one-click access or single sign-on for seamless user access without requiring your employees to remember and enter hundreds of passwords and usernames.  These protections help you prevent breaches, secure identities, maintain trust with both users and customers, and they allow your employees to collaborate even more seamlessly in a streamlined user experience. Identity is not just how you log in, it's the control plan for managing your security and unlocking your productivity.