What is Identity Threat Detection & Response?
Identity threat detection and response (ITDR) is a sub-discipline of identity security that focuses on protecting an organization's identity and access management (IAM) infrastructure. It specifically addresses threats that target user identities, credentials, and the systems that manage them.
While IAM provides the foundational controls for who can access what, ITDR is the active security layer that monitors for, detects, and responds to attacks that bypass or abuse those controls.
How ITDR Fits into the Broader IAM Discipline
ITDR’s role is to fill the gap left by traditional IAM, which is often not positioned to detect and mitigate sophisticated attacks that involve credential theft, lateral movement, or privilege escalation.
- IAM’s primary goal is to prevent unauthorized access in the first place by setting the rules for who gets access and what they can do. It includes things like multi-factor authentication (MFA), single sign-on (SSO), and privileged access management (PAM).
- ITDR’s main purpose is to detect and respond to threats in real time. Identity Threat Detection and Response continously monitors for threats, looking for unusual behavior, suspicious logins, or attempts to escalate privileges.
Key Benefits of ITDR
- Rapid Incident Response: ITDR tools provide always-on monitoring that can quickly identify a compromised identity, allowing security teams to respond in minutes instead of hours or days. This drastically reduces the potential damage of a breach.
- Reduced Attack Surface: By monitoring for misconfigurations in the IAM infrastructure, ITDR helps organizations fix vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. This includes issues like over-privileged accounts or dormant users with access rights.
- Improved Threat Detection: ITDR provides rich data and context about identity-related activities, empowering security teams to proactively hunt for subtle signs of a breach that may be missed by traditional security information and event management (SIEM) systems.
- Protection Against Advanced Attacks: Many cyberattacks today don’t start with a brute force attack. Instead, they begin with a compromised identity. ITDR is specifically designed to stop these identity-centric attacks before they can spread and cause significant harm.
Common Use Cases for Identity Threat Detection & Response
- Flagging Dormant Account Activity: If a user account that has been inactive for months or years suddenly authenticates and attempts to access resources, ITDR will trigger an alert, as this is a strong indicator of a compromised or misused account.
- Identifying Lateral Movement: If a user account suddenly attempts to gain access a critical database or a sensitive server outside of their role and responsibilities, ITDR can flag this as anomalous behavior and trigger an investigation.
- Detecting Brute-Force Attack: ITDR solutions monitor for a high volume of failed login attempts from a single IP address or against multiple user accounts, alerting the security team to a potential credential stuffing or brute-force attack.
- Preventing Privilege Escalation: An ITDR platform can detect when a standard user account attempts to add itself to an administrator group or create a new user with elevated privileges. This allows for an immediate response to an attacker trying to gain more control over the network.
