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Table of Contents

• What is ITDR?

• Security Issues: Why is ITDR important?

• ITDR Explained

  • Background and Introduction to ITDR

  • Identity Security Ecosystem & ITDR play

  • ITDR from industry analysts perspective

  • ITDR Capabilities / Functionalities

  • ITDR vs. EDR and XDR

• Conclusion:

• My Ask

Hi Securing Things Community,

📢 Welcome to ITDR (Identity Threat Detection & Response) crash course! 🛡️

If you've ever been curious about what the heck is ITDR and or if you are reading about it the first time, then you are in the right place. It could be misinterpreted with other terminologies that we’ve been used to, as evident from my LinkedIn Poll. Almost 50% guessed it right, while rest got it wrong and mixed it with other terminologies that we’ve been used to hearing.

In this newsletter, I'll cover ITDR's background, foundational concepts, and its role in identity security, IAM, and cybersecurity. Will outline its relation to XDR, industry insights, key software vendors, and provide reference materials. Additionally, I'll share some of my academy initiatives updates, popular social media posts, ways I can assist, and requests.

What is ITDR?

ITDR (Identity Threat Detection and Response) is a specialised category or an approach within cybersecurity, that focuses on and or designed to detect, identify, detect and respond to threats targeting identities (whether humans identities or non-human identities i.e. machines). It encompasses tools and best practices that enhance existing Identity Access Management (IAM) systems by adding detection and response capabilities. ITDR aims to provide comprehensive visibility into identity-related threats across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, ensuring rapid response to potential breaches.

Gartner, which first defined ITDR in 2021, views it as distinct cybersecurity category and a necessary evolution to address gaps left by IAM (identity and access management) and PAM (privilege access management) solutions, in order to combat advanced identity-based threats in increasingly hybrid and distributed environments.

Expert Insight: “ITDR is not just a tool; it’s a paradigm shift. It empowers organizations to respond faster and more effectively to identity-based attacks.” – CISO, Fortune 500 Company.

Security Issues: Why is ITDR important?

The rise of identity-related breaches like the most famous ones in 2024 are, Snowflake data breach, Cloudflare, Hugging face and AWS breaches, highlighting the vulnerabilities and limitations in traditional identity management systems. Attackers do prioritise credential theft over exploiting hardware vulnerabilities.

Addresses an essential controls gap: ITDR have the potential to solve problems that are currently unsolvable by other IAM, PAM and XDR solutions due to their different focus and functionality.

Stay updated on Cybersecurity of Things with specialized content, industry insights, career guidance, best practices, market analysis, tools, and training to enhance your skills for a smarter, safer society!

ITDR Explained

Here's a quick crash course on ITDR, covering its fundamental concepts, role in identity security solutions, and key differences. This guide provides all the essentials for those curious or eager to learn more.

Note: I might update this or add more information to this in future versions.