Identity theft is a concern for everyone living in the digital age. By stealing someone’s identity, a criminal can gain access to their credit cards and financial accounts or apply for credit using the victim’s identity. The compromise of your identity can lead to numerous troubling circumstances.
Cybercriminals have learned to leverage identity theft to access vast amounts of personal and sensitive information within digital enterprises. The strategy is straightforward: gain access to a privileged account within a digital organization and use that privilege to compromise data in some way.
The principle of attacks is simple, and defending against these attacks is equally straightforward in principle. You must protect your systems from identity based attacks such as compromised accounts, credential stuffing, password leaks, phishing, and insider threats.
What is ITDR?
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) is a cybersecurity framework designed to detect, investigate, and respond to threats targeting user identities within an organization. ITDR solutions focus on identifying suspicious activities, unauthorized access attempts, and potential identity breaches by continuously monitoring identity-related events and behaviors. In any attack scenario, time is of the essence. By leveraging advanced analytics, machine learning, and behavioral analysis, ITDR systems can proactively alert security teams to identity-based threats. Again, the premise is simple. By reducing the Mean time to Detection (MTTD) you can reduce the Mean Time to Response and prevent data breaches and other types of attacks that can disrupt your business.
Gartner describes ITDR as a collection of tools and best practices to protect identity systems. So foundational is this objective that Gartner identified the task of protecting your access management infrastructure using ITDR technology as a top trend for 2022. Improving the authentication process alone is no longer enough. According to Gartner, ITDR tools can help protect identity systems, detect when they are compromised, and enable efficient remediation.
Why is ITDR Important?
You don’t have to work in cybersecurity, or even the IT field, to know that cyberattacks are increasing. Phishing scams are not only prevalent to anyone with an email address, but their scams are also continually revolving to deceive users into providing sensitive information, such as login credentials, through fake emails or websites. With the help of AI, phishing scams look very authentic today and social engineering attacks have grown quite elaborate today. Credential stuffing attacks have also become very common with all the millions of compromised credentials floating around the dark web. A common thread among all these attacks is their focus on exploiting identities.
At the same time, enterprises are pushing the limit of identity-based security with the recent shift to remote and hybrid work. Visibility is now more important than ever as employees, contract workers and third party vendors access corporate networks from unknown locations. The task of ensuring access to legitimate users only is highly challenging. Simultaneously, regulatory compliance requirements have become more stringent over the years when it comes to identity management and security. In summary, ITDR is the modern day solution to combat today’s ever expanding number of identity based threats.
ITDR vs. EDR
There are a lot of cybersecurity tools, technologies and acronyms out there and keeping them straight can be confusing. There is a lot of talk about ITDR and EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) these days, and while they complement each other in providing comprehensive cybersecurity protection, they differ in their approaches. ITDR is identity-oriented, focusing on user identities and access management, whereas EDR is focused on endpoints, such as laptops, desktops, and servers. An EDIR captures endpoint-specific data to identify and respond to threats at the device level. Should a threat actor attempt to gain access to a network through an endpoint device, it is the job of an EDR solution to detect that activity and either remediate it and/or alert a security team. When it comes to identity related threats, an ITDR solution is essential for safeguarding your organization.
ITDR Facts and Trends
With the sophistication of today’s cyberattacks and the ease with which they can be executed, it is clear that traditional reactive security approaches are no longer sufficient. ITDR provides the proactive monitoring and threat detection capabilities that organizations need today to ensure that their identities are not being compromised. Beyond a proactive stance, organizations are increasingly recognizing the necessity of adopting a zero-trust approach to security, where privileged access is continuously verified at every stage.
It is also obvious that we have reached the capacity of human intervention security. Hybrid networks are vast and stretch the capacity of human oversight. Modern ITDR solutions leverage AI and ML to detect anomalies and potential threats automatically and can pick out suspicious behavior that could indicate a security risk.
While the need for identity threat detection security grows more critical, it is also growing more challenging to maintain. The dynamic nature of modern workplaces means frequent onboarding, offboarding and role changes. Many organizations suffer from a lack of visibility across multi-cloud environments and complex hybrid architectures. And then there is the fact that threat actors are becoming more adept at targeting and exploiting vulnerabilities in authentication processes, password policies, and access controls.
What to Look for in an ITDR Solution
We’ve established that implementing an ITDR solution is critical in today’s high-threat environment, but what makes a good ITDR solution? What are the must-have components to prevent identity exploitation and compromise? Below are some key features that any modern ITDR solution should include:
- Strong preventative controls and robust identity discovery capabilities to identify and catalog all identities, both human and non-human, across the organization’s network.
- Risk prioritization that enables the system to evaluate and rank potential vulnerabilities and threats based on their impact.
- Real-time operation to detect and prevent malicious access attempts before they become actual threats.
- Automated remediation capabilities that allow the system to take immediate action to mitigate risks without requiring manual intervention.
- Comprehensive and continuous visibility that provides real-time insights into identity-related activities and potential risks across the entire network.
- It should provide end-to-end services that include threat detection and response, as well as identity governance, access management, and compliance reporting.
How Netwrix Can Help
Netwrix ITDR technology solutions are built around one simple premise. The faster you know about actions that might put your organization’s identity security at risk, the faster you can block potential risky events from happening. In other words, thwart your adversaries before they can breach your security. Their foundational principle of rapid detection and prevention uses a comprehensive three prong approach.
- Spot identity threat in time to prevent a breach
- Minimize the damage by containing threats to your Active Directory fast
- Minimize business downtime and user frustration
Netwrix advanced ITDR solutions can help you accelerate investigations and strengthen security by analyzing detailed event information in context. It can give your security teams the ability to analyze and leverage actionable intelligence that improves their ability to address immediate threats and improves your overall security posture. In those instances when an advanced attack does get through, Netwrix ITDR solutions can safely roll back any unwanted changes that were made. This can include the recovery of deleted items, reversing permission changes or restoring your entire AD forest to get your business back to full operation.
The Netwrix ITDR tool set includes the following:
Netwrix Threat Manager
This threat detection software provides real-time detection and response to advanced identity threats. It uses machine learning and user behavior analytics to identify and even respond to suspicious activities and sophisticated attack methodologies. With Its complete set of automated response capabilities, this ITDR solution can quickly contain threats and minimize any potential damage and disruption to business operations. You can even learn details about your attackers by luring them into honeypots where you can study their tactics and keep them away from your business assets.
Netwrix Threat Prevention
Identifies and potentially blocks risks to your identity infrastructure before they can become incidents. This includes things such as abuse of privileged accounts, changes to Group Policy, changes to the membership of administrative groups or any lateral movement activity indicative of intruder reconnaissance. Your teams can easily set up alerts to be notified about the type of events they want to know about in real time. Netwrix Threat Prevention can also reduce the burden of completing compliance reports and audit preparation.
Netwrix Auditor
Provides consolidated audit trails and detailed reporting to enable your organization to detect security threat and policy violation. Netwrix Auditor takes much of the worry out of passing compliance audits thanks to its comprehensive reporting functionality. It can proactively identify your top data and infrastructure security gaps and expose loose permissions to let you know where your weak points are.
Netwrix Recovery for AD
Some type of breach is going to happen one day. It is inevitable. What doesn’t have to be inevitable is costly disruption as a result. With Netrix Recovery for AID ensures quick and efficient resolution of issues when needed. Whether it be a full recovery of your domain or a granular rollback of inadvertent changes to resource permissions, this powerful solution gives you the ability to reverse any modifications that might grant users privilege escalation. Netwrix Recovery for AD is the easy button your teams need to recover from circumstances that could disrupt your business.
Netwrix’s end-to-end services cover the full spectrum of ITDR needs, including threat detection, identity governance, and compliance reporting. ITDR must serve multiple functions for your enterprise, and the Netwrix suite of solutions provides all these capabilities. Their comprehensive and holistic approach has been recognized by Gartner and other respected industry analysts and is considered a top choice for organizations seeking robust identity security solutions.
Other Top ITDR Solutions
While Netwrix is an industry leader that is known for its ITDR solutions, other alternatives abound as well. Some of the other solutions available on the market today include the following:
Falcon Identity Protection by CrowdStrike
CrowdStrike’s Falcon Identity Protection is a powerful solution designed to detect and respond to identity-based threats in real time. It provides unified visibility across both on-premises and cloud environments. It is intelligence driven and utilizes AI and machine learning to spot anomalies. With automated responses and risk-based access controls, it integrates smoothly with endpoint security to help organizations stay ahead of sophisticated identity threats.
Unified Security Platform by CyberArk
Unified Security Platform by CyberArk safeguards all types of identities from employees and customers to machines and applications across diverse environments. It is built to secure hybrid and multi-cloud environments and provide you full visibility across your active directory environment as well as cloud identity providers such as Entra ID and Okta. It utilizes AI-driven baselines to spot anomalies that reveal attack threats that involve your identities for a proactive defense.
Microsoft Defender by Microsoft
Microsoft Defender for Identity covers on-prem and cloud identities, giving IT teams a complete view to their identity environment through a unified ITDR dashboard that showcases any important information related to unauthorized access, account compromise or abnormal activities. This enhanced visibility helps spot identity cyberthreats in real time with preconfigured alerts and detections for common and emerging cyberattack patterns. The Microsoft identity security platform includes intelligent automation capabilities that can quickly respond to events of compromised identities, stopping an attacker before any real damage can take place.
Directory Service Protecter by Semperis
Directory Services Protecter is an ITDR solution designed for today’s highly complex hybrid architectures. It offers tamperproof tracking and automatic rollback of malicious or accidental changes to AD and Entra ID. DSP continually scans and inspects AD, Azure AD, and Privileged Access Management PAM systems to discover and prioritize identity vulnerabilities. Like other modern IDTS solutions, it incorporates AI and ML, allowing it to detect and stop sophisticated attack techniques at their earliest stages. It also offers pre-built compliance report templates that align with the major compliance standards.
Singularity Identity by SentinelOne
Singularity Identity by SentinelOne helps you detect identity attacks across the enterprise that target Active Directory and Entra ID. Besides providing real time defense against identity based attacks that target your domain joined assets, it employ deception techniques to misdirect them. The aim is to steer attackers away from your critical assets and make lateral movement extra difficult. In addition to continuous monitoring and visibility, SentinelOne gives you visibility into service account compromises that may allow attackers to elevate privileges. It also integrates with Singularity XDR.
Unified Identity Protection from Silverfort
Unified Identity Protection from Silverfort ensures that any device, server, or applications is protected by MFA, including resources that couldn’t integrate with MFA before. This includes legacy applications, command-line tools, file shares, IT infrastructure, and industrial systems. Integration with your existing IAM infrastructure is seamless as it doesn’t require any agents or proxies. Their platform helps detect account takeovers, lateral movement and ransomware propagation.
Tenable Identity Exposure
Tenable Identity Exposure, formerly Tenable.ad, unifies your AD, hybrid and Entra ID accounts into a single pane of glass, giving you the ability to easily control all your dispersed identities. The solution uses data-science backed risk scoring to identify and prioritize the most vulnerable identities in your environment. Now your team can uncover vulnerabilities, risky configurations and permission creep within your most critical resources. Improve your organization’s password hygiene by checking for passwords that have been compromised, shared, or fail to meet complexity requirements.
Varonis for Active Directory by Varonis
The Varonis ITDR platform can discover and classify your critical data and monitor all its access and configuration activity to keep it safe. It helps identify and fix AD misconfigurations that hackers commonly exploit to achieve their malicious intentions. Like other ITDR solutions, it utilizes machines learning to develop user behavior profiles and baselines for all active users and devices within your environments. Anything outside of the norm is then identified, flagged and possibly mitigated automatically. Varonis also has built-int threat models to detect common AD attacks.
Call to Action
Your organization has data that hackers and cybercriminals want. The key to stealing that information is to first seize the privileges that can make it happen. With the growing prevalence of identity-based attacks and the increasing complexity of hybrid and multi-cloud networks, ITDR has become a critical component of any robust cybersecurity strategy. ITDR provides the capabilities you need to safeguard your privileged accounts while monitoring and securing access to your digital resources.
Any organization that operates blind today without visibility and insight into their AD and Azure AD environments is highly vulnerable to attack. Without the right tools, cybercriminals can move laterally throughout your enterprise undetected and unabated. Before purchasing an ITDR solution, you need to conduct an initial assessment to get an accurate assessment of your current identity security posture. Organize an ITDR team of involved stakeholders to define objectives of a proposed solution. Once everything is in place, the research and evaluation process can begin to find the best ITDR solution that meets the unique needs of your organization.
Once a decision is made, the real work begins. Develop a roadmap for implementation that includes small scale pilot programs to get your feet wet prior to the full rollout. Design a training program that caters to both admins and users to make sure that everyone knows the benefits that ITDR will bring to their job roles. Plan for ongoing training, monitoring and optimization of all ITDR processes. By establishing a strong foundation of support for your ITDR solution, you will enhance its chances of success.
FAQs
What is ITDR in cybersecurity?
Identity Threat Detection and Response ITDR is a cybersecurity discipline that focuses on identifying, mitigating and responding to identity threats. Such threats include compromised user accounts, leaked passwords, and data breaches. ITDR dashboards give security teams a holistic view of their identity infrastructure. Continuous monitoring of user activity gives security personnel the heads up in real time of anything suspicious or out of the ordinary. Modern ITDR solutions are integrated with AI and ML that automates the numerous security functions necessary to protect privileged identities and high value assets. ITDR is a complete solution that can provide complete protection for today’s complex hybrid networks.
What is the difference between MDR and ITDR?
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) and Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) both focus on identifying and mitigating cyber threats, but they differ in scope and approach. MDR is a managed service that monitors multiple endpoints, networks, and cloud environments. ITDR, on the other hand, specifically targets identity-based threats, focusing on user behavior and identity systems to detect and respond to credential theft, privilege escalation, and other identity-related attacks. ITDR is about security identities and their privileges to ensure that your digital resources are protected.
What is the ITDR approach?
The Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) approach focuses on protecting digital identities through continuous monitoring, behavioral analysis, and threat detection. Thanks to integrated advanced analytics, anomalies can be easily identified such as compromised credentials and privilege escalation. ITDR integrates with existing security systems, automates responses, supports compliance, and provides detailed incident investigation, ultimately reducing the attack surface and enhancing overall cybersecurity posture.
