The 64th Edition of the Identity Jedi Newsletter

"THE LIST" update, Access Co-Pilot, News update

Hey Jedi welcome to the 64th edition of the Identity Jedi Newsletter. We march closer to the end of the year and “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas..” Make sure to get your shopping in early..( I take gift cards by the way), and go ahead and take that extra vacation time this year. You’ve earned it Jedi.

Looking for other identity professionals to nerd out with? Check out IDpro

Let’s Get to the Good Stuff!

  • Let’s talk about the List

  • Access, AI, and Automation, Oh my!

  • Incident response and identity

WHAT’S HAPPENING THIS WEEK

THE List — Update

Ok, ok. I got some really good feedback about the list, and I’m excited that you all are excited! But I wanted to clear some things up and also encourage some engagement.

1) The List is meant to be a living list, and commentary from the community is WELCOMED and ENCOURAGED. Please head to the post, leave comments, and leave reviews. The vision here is that we’ll have a list of vendors that the community chooses and ranks. Also, is IT IS IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER….yet.

2) The first update will be live later on this evening ( I’ll send out an email to let you know when it’s live). There are some vendors I forgot, and I will give the list a first crack at categories.

Here’s what I’m thinking so far for categories:

  • Orchestration

  • Authorization

  • IGA-Next ( Modern approaches to IGA)

  • The OG’s

AI lands in the IGA space….again

And let the games begin. AI has been the hot topic all year, and it’s starting to make it’s way in the IGA space. ( Yes one could argue that it’s been there for a while, but I’ll argue that point later).

This generation of AI talks includes using some level of LLM’s to bring automation and ease of use to users.

Having said that, let’s dig into the recent release for ConductorOne and their Copilot feature.

On the surface, it offers nothing groundbreaking that we haven’t seen companies attempt before. ( Recommendations on access reviews, deeper context into what access is).

However, the game-changer could be their automated access request capability.

Access Copilot also helps you automate access requests. In addition to providing a self-service request experience in Slack or the web app, your workforce can continue using your existing ticketing system but still take advantage of the backend automation provided by ConductorOne. Users submit a request through your existing ticketing system, such as JIRA, and Copilot will automatically action the request through the ConductorOne platform, providing automated approval routing, provisioning, and a complete audit trail. 

-ConductorOne Blog post

The ability of an organization to enforce proper access request processes from wherever users are is AMAZING. And the potential to add on to this capability is just as exciting.

Imagine building in the detection of new entitlements that haven’t been approved and automagically triggering an access request process to ensure proper approval, policy check, and auditing.

Taking it a step further, building Slack-style chatbots to interact with Access Copilot for users to ask questions, around access.

Things like this are truly where we start to see the impact that AI and modern approaches can have on the identity industry.

Incident Response and Identity

Have you ever wondered how security incidents are being handled in your organization? Perhaps, you have an image in your mind of security analysts sitting in front of their screens and constantly monitoring all the logs and alerts they receive. In reality, the incident response process can be a complex and time-consuming task. But what if I told you that implementing identity and access management (IAM) can significantly shorten the incident response cycle?

Stay with me.

A majority of security tools have no genuine concept of identity. They know an account name but don’t know what that account has access to, what activities it’s done lately, etc. They are more focused on finding the threat and containing it. Part of the trouble in containing is that you have to know how much to contain. If an incident happens on server A, you would want to know all identities of those with access to server A. At a minimum, while investigating, you would want that access monitored and possibly paused until you can figure out what’s going on.

Well, who guards the gates of access? Identity systems.

If we could cut incident response time by 20%, wouldn’t that be worth it?

This integration is a match made in heaven, yet we don’t see it happening, well, at least we haven’t. I think we will next year. The noise around ITDR has both sides (security and identity vendors) looking at ways to be more like each other.

However, organizations don’t need to wait on vendors to make this happen. If you’ve got a fairly modern IAM stack ( think post-2018), you should have API access to integrate into your security stack. Even something as simple as providing rich lookups of identity information would be a good start.

Food for thought.

#249 - Cyber Insurance with Jason Rebholz of Corvus Insurance and YouTube’s Teach Me Cyber

Listen to this episode from Identity at the Center on Spotify. In this episode of the Identity at the Center (IDAC) podcast, hosts Jim McDonald and Jeff Steadman have an in-depth discussion about cyber insurance with guest Jason Rebholz, Chief Information Security Officer at Corvus Insurance. Jason also hosts the popular Teach Me Cyber YouTube channel and shares his journey into security content creation. Topics covered around cyber insurance include an overview of what it is, what protections it offers, what type of companies need it, as well as best practices for completing applications. They discuss key security controls that insurance carriers look for, with a focus Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), and resilient backups. Jason offers perspective into the evolving role of insurance providers, not just in paying claims, but in coordinating incident response and providing value-added services to policyholders. This includes recommending and connecting customers to vetted vendors, reviewing response costs, and helping plan remediation efforts. Other discussion areas include common mistakes applicants make on cyber insurance questionnaires and how to provide proper context to underwriters. The group also talks through emerging technologies like Privileged Access Management (PAM) and AI that enterprises should be aware of. On the lighter side, Jason shares his passion for indoor rock climbing and how the sport connects to his work in security with skills like problem solving, mental mapping, and dealing with constant change. Connect with Jason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jrebholz/ Teach Me Cyber on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@teachmecyber Weekend Byte Newsletter: weekendbyte.teachmecyber.com Learn more about Corvus Insurance: https://www.corvusinsurance.com/ Identiverse Regional Event - Chicago: https://bit.ly/IDVR23-IDAC Connect with us on LinkedIn: Jim McDonald: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmcdonaldpmp/ Jeff Steadman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffsteadman/ Visit the show on the web at idacpodcast.com and follow @IDACPodcast on Twitter.

Identity Jedi Show Podcast

The Last Word

This week was pretty significant for me. If you follow me on LinkedIn, I posted about it, but yesterday I received one of the best emails EVER. As a young man,, I read magazines like Black Enterprise, Forbes, and INC for HOURS. I could not get enough of them. And I told myself back then that I would be in those magazines one day. While magazines aren’t the thing anymore ( yes, I’m aware they still exists..lol), those companies still post news on their websites, and I’m proud to say my One Day was yesterday.

One down, two to go!!

To have an article in Black Enterprise is beyond exciting to me. It’s humbling, and to be about a topic that is so near and dear to my heart, it’s even more humbling. Now I’m really big about keeping media channels separate and audiences segmented, and I always look to keep this newsletter on the topic of IAM. But we are in the tech space, and the representation of minorities in this space is abysmal. And it will only change if we talk about it.

Notice I wrote talk. Not yell, not scream, not accuse.

Talk.

And that’s what I will continue to do. Talk about it. On any and every platform that I can. I’ve got so much more to share in this arena, and I’ll keep you updated on the journey. If you’re interested in providing a platform or know of a platform where this conversation is needed. Let’s talk:

Ok..that’s all for this week folks, see ya next week!

Be Good to each other, Be Kind to each other, Love each other

-Identity Jedi

What did you think of this weeks newsletter?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Reply

or to participate.