While executives are prioritizing AI-driven identity risks, those on the frontlines say they lack the executive support, tooling, and automation needed to secure the basics attackers exploit every day.
A new report from The Identity Underground, a community for leading IAM practitioners and identity security executives worldwide, finds 54 percent of executives cite AI-enhanced identity threats as a top concern, yet only around three percent say they feel very prepared.
Jessica Stone, managing director of The Identity Underground says:
This report marks the first time the community has shared survey data publicly. What you are about to read reflects the reality of identity security after the presentations end and the real work begins.
We are proud to share the collective insight of our community with a broader audience and contribute a more grounded, practitioner-led perspective to the identity security conversation.
The report shows executives anticipate AI-enhanced threats as their primary concern for the year ahead, with their main priority set to govern AI Agents. At the same time 43 percent of practitioners say credential stuffing and password spraying remain their most frequent attacks.
In addition 82 percent say legacy identity infrastructure actively increases security risk and 68 percent say they can detect identity attacks, but only eight percent rely on real-time automated response.
Visibility into non-human identities is also an issue, with 45 percent of executives identifying this as a major concern. Not surprising then that 60 percent see AI agent security as a top priority for 2026.
The report shows multi-factor authentication has reached 90 to 100 percent deployment in over 30 percent of organizations surveyed. However there’s an issue around friction, the harder authentication becomes the more likely users are to reuse passwords or find ways to bypass controls.
When it comes to future plans 55 percent are implementing unified identity security platforms while 69 percent are deploying unified SIEM with identity analytics.
The full report is available from The Identity Underground site.
Image credit: DenisSmile/depositphotos.com
