Recent industry research shows identity-based threats now rank among the most significant risks facing organisations, driven by sharp increases in credential theft, session hijacking and the exploitation of poorly governed identities.
Nearly 90% of organisations experienced a cybersecurity incident in the past year, with more than four in ten suffering multiple breaches, underscoring how commonplace successful attacks have become even amid sustained increases in security spending.
Attackers have shifted focus away from breaching hardened network defences towards exploiting logins, privileges and identity systems that provide faster, quieter access to data and systems.
As hybrid work and cloud adoption become the norm, this identity-first threat landscape is intensifying. Traditional perimeter controls are routinely bypassed and security leaders increasingly recognise that identity has effectively become the new perimeter. This shift fundamentally changes how UK organisations must think about cyber resilience and how their channel partners can support them.
Why the perimeter no longer protects the organisation
The traditional security perimeter was built for a world where users worked inside offices, applications lived on-premise and firewalls formed a clear boundary between trusted and untrusted networks. That model no longer reflects reality.
Users, devices and workloads now operate everywhere, across homes, offices, cloud platforms and partner ecosystems. Recent research shows that nearly six in ten organisations say their security environments have become too complex to manage effectively and only around half are confident they can clearly identify where their security gaps exist.
In this environment, the perimeter is no longer a physical or network boundary; it is the individual user and their identity.
Access to data must therefore be based on who someone is, what they are trying to access, from where and under what conditions. This is why zero trust principles have become central to modern security strategies. Trust is no longer implicit once a user is “inside” the network; it must be continuously verified and access should be limited to the minimum required to perform a task.
Many organisations still operate legacy access models that grant broad, standing privileges once credentials are accepted, creating an attractive opportunity for attackers. 2025 research shows that over 50% of organisations acknowledge they have invested in security controls they don’t truly need, while two-thirds admit they are not fully using the capabilities they already have. If an identity can be compromised, the attacker effectively bypasses multiple layers of traditional defence in one step.
Identity as the easiest and most profitable attack surface
From an attacker’s perspective, identity offers the fastest route to value. Rather than attempting to breach hardened infrastructure, they target the mechanisms that grant legitimate access. One study shows that well over half of modern breaches now involve compromised credentials rather than technical exploits, reflecting how effective identity abuse has become.
Advances in automation and AI have made phishing campaigns more convincing, increasingly personalised and harder for users to distinguish from legitimate communications.
Attackers no longer rely on poor spelling or obvious red flags; instead, they abuse legitimate authentication flows, clone cloud identity portals and exploit password reset and MFA fatigue scenarios to obtain valid credentials.
Beyond phishing, compromised credentials are widely available through underground marketplaces, often sold by access brokers who specialise in harvesting and monetising identity data. In many cases, the attacker launching a ransomware or data theft campaign did not steal the credentials themselves; they simply bought access. At the same time, around three-quarters of organisations report that credential leak risk is increasing, reinforcing why identity has become such a lucrative attack surface.
Identity-based attacks also short-circuit the traditional cyber kill chain. Instead of moving step by step through reconnaissance, exploitation and lateral movement, attackers can log in directly using a legitimate identity. At that point, the activity may look indistinguishable from normal user behaviour unless the right controls are in place.
Even low-privilege accounts can provide a foothold. Once inside, attackers can probe for misconfigurations, exploit privilege creep and move laterally towards more sensitive systems. This makes identity governance and access hygiene just as important as perimeter defences.
From vulnerability management to exposure management
This shift towards identity also reflects a broader evolution in security thinking. Traditional vulnerability management focuses on patching known flaws across infrastructure. While still important, it does not capture how attackers actually operate in modern environments.
Exposure management takes a wider view. It looks across identities, cloud configurations, external-facing assets and connectivity between systems to understand how an attacker could realistically move through an organisation.
From an identity perspective, this means examining privilege paths, dormant accounts, excessive permissions and weak authentication flows. The goal is not to eliminate every vulnerability, but to reduce what is genuinely exploitable and relevant to the organisation’s risk profile.
What this means for the channel
For channel partners, the rise of identity-based attacks represents both responsibility and opportunity. Customers increasingly recognise that point products alone will not resolve systemic identity risk. They need guidance, roadmap-driven change and ongoing operational support.
Identity-first security cannot be installed and forgotten. Zero trust is a framework, not a product and progressing towards it requires staged transformation across people, process and technology.
Partners that can assess identity exposure, define risk-based roadmaps and deliver managed identity and access services will be best positioned to differentiate.
Many organisations already own capable identity platforms but lack the skills and capacity to configure, govern and monitor them effectively.
As identity becomes the new perimeter, channel partners have a critical role to play in helping UK organisations reduce exposure, limit breach impact and build lasting cyber resilience
