Topic starter
16/01/2026 1:15 pm
TL;DR: Identity-driven attacks now exploit compromised credentials, phishing, misconfigured cloud services, over-permissioned accounts, and OAuth token abuse as the primary access path in hybrid estates, according to Hydden. Traditional IAM programs that assume identities are known and stable leave blind spots that attackers convert into footholds, persistence, and exfiltration.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Hydden: “The Lifecycle of an Identity Attack”.
By the numbers:
- Valid account abuse was responsible for 35% of cloud-related incidents, according to CrowdStrike cited by Hydden.
Key questions
Q: What breaks when identity visibility is incomplete in hybrid estates?
A: When identity visibility is incomplete, attackers can hide inside legitimate accounts, cloud roles, and machine identities without triggering the controls teams think they have.
Q: Why do compromised identities remain such a persistent risk in identity security programs?
A: Compromised identities are persistent because access often outlives the original approval, especially for service accounts, API keys, and delegated privileges.
Q: What are the signs that service accounts are becoming an attack path?
A: Warning signs include long-lived credentials, broad cloud roles, weak ownership, and service accounts that appear in authentication or privilege-change logs outside normal operations.
Practitioner guidance
- Implement continuous identity discovery Replace periodic manual audits with continuous discovery across on-prem, cloud, SaaS, and hybrid identity stores so hidden accounts and trust paths do not persist between reviews.
- Correlate identity telemetry with vulnerability data Connect exploit intelligence, account creation events, privilege changes, and authentication logs so you can trace when a vulnerability turns into usable identity access.
- Prioritise non-human identity controls Apply strict rotation, vaulting, JIT access, and least privilege to service accounts, API keys, refresh tokens, and other machine identities with broad reach.
Bottom line: Identity compromise now functions as the main access path in hybrid estates, which makes identity governance a front-line security control rather than a back-office administration task.
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This topic was modified 48 minutes ago by NHI Mgmt Group
11/10/2026 1:36 am
Identity discovery is now an access-control prerequisite, not an inventory nicety. The article’s central finding is that attackers exploit what defenders have not mapped, whether that is a shadow service account, a forgotten cloud role, or an OAuth token that still works. Traditional IAM assumes the estate is sufficiently known to govern it; hybrid identity attacks prove that assumption no longer holds. Practitioners should read this as a governance problem where incomplete identity visibility directly translates into attackable access.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How should security teams reduce the blast radius of privileged identities?
A: Security teams should define a small set of tightly governed admin identities, give them the minimum authority needed, and make elevation time bound. The goal is to prevent one compromise from cascading across identity, device, and SaaS control planes. Continuous review of who can administer what is more important than periodic access cleanup.
👉 Read our full editorial: Identity attacks are now the primary access path in hybrid estates