Navigate 2024: SailPoint offers new way to help tame machine identity chaos

ORLANDO -- SailPoint Technologies today announced at its annual Navigate user conference a new solution that seamlessly integrates security measures for both artificial and human identities – the former becoming a significant and growing problem for identity professionals.

Machine Identity Security is a new addition to SailPoint’s Identity Secure Cloud suite, powered by the Atlas platform. The release of Machine Identity Security comes as the ratio of machine-to-human digital identities in organizations reaches  as high as 60 to 1.

"So how bad is the problem today? It's significant,” Andrew Moore, SailPoint’s Vice President of Product Management, said. “We will bring this up with customers and sometimes they will smile at first when I say, 'You are a sophisticated organization, you probably already have a good repository and understanding,' and they'll say, 'Uh, is a spreadsheet a good version of this?'"

That manual method to machine identity management appears to be in the majority, favored by 66% of companies surveyed by SailPoint. This approach is not only inefficient, but it is also potentially dangerous, given that a mere 38% of organizations can monitor their active machine identities in real time.

Machine Identity Security greatly reduces those risks with an array of modern-day capabilities, including automated detection of machine accounts, sophisticated categorization tools, and dynamic human ownership allocation. It also incorporates access verification mechanisms to eliminate superfluous accounts and privileges.

By elevating machine identity management to match the standards set for human users, SailPoint aims to streamline and fortify organizational security frameworks, offering enterprises a unified approach to identity governance.

The urgency of machine identity management

As automation continues to transform industries, machines are taking on increasingly complex tasks. Many organizations, even sophisticated ones, struggle to maintain proper visibility and control over these digital entities. The result? A sprawling, often undocumented network of machine identities that pose substantial risks to enterprise security.

As for what sets SailPoint Machine Identity Security apart in this critical arena, the company cited the following:

Unparalleled Discovery: Leveraging one of the market's most robust connectivity fabrics, the solution can discover service accounts, bots, and robotic process automation (RPA) across an organization's entire digital landscape. This comprehensive visibility is a game-changer for many enterprises still relying on spreadsheets or fragmented systems.

Built on Atlas: As part of SailPoint's Atlas platform, the solution integrates seamlessly with existing identity governance frameworks. This integration allows for sophisticated access controls, workflow automation, and leveraging of machine learning capabilities.

Cloud-Native Scalability: The cloud-based architecture ensures the solution can grow and adapt as rapidly as the machine identity landscape itself, providing immediate access to innovations without the need for on-premises infrastructure updates.

Unified Visibility: By centralizing both human and machine identities, the solution offers a holistic view of all access points, enabling better understanding of interactions and risk profiles across the entire identity ecosystem.

Compliance-Ready: For highly regulated industries, the solution provides the necessary controls and visibility to meet stringent compliance requirements, adapting to the unique needs of machine identities in financial and other sensitive sectors.

As the digital workforce continues to grow in complexity and importance, solutions like this will be essential in maintaining security, compliance, and operational efficiency in the age of automation.