last year, cross-domain attacks gained notoriety as a new tactic among opponents. These operations exploit weaknesses in multiple domains, including endpoints, identity systems, and cloud environments, to allow an adversary to penetrate organizations, move sideways, and avoid detection. eCrime groups like SCATTERED SPIDER and adversaries of the North Korea-Nexus such as THE FAMOUS CHOLIMA exemplifies the use of cross-domain tactics, using advanced techniques to exploit security gaps in interconnected environments.
The basis of these attacks is built around the use of legitimate entities. Today’s adversaries no longer “break in”; they “log in” – using compromised credentials to gain access and seamlessly blend in with their targets. Once inside, they use legitimate tools and processes, making them hard to detect as they move across domains and escalate privileges.
The current state of identity security
The rise of cross-domain and identity-based attacks exposes a critical vulnerability in organizations that view identity security as an integral component of their security architecture rather than an integral component of their security architecture. Many businesses rely on disparate tools that only address pieces of the identity problem, resulting in visibility gaps and operational inefficiencies. Such a patchwork approach does not provide a holistic view or effectively protect the wider landscape of identity.
This approach creates gaps in security tools, but can also create a dangerous disconnect between security teams. For example, the division between management teams identity and access management (IAM) tools and those performing security operations creates dangerous visibility gaps and exposes weaknesses in security architectures across on-premises and cloud environments. Opponents use these gaps to launch their attacks. Organizations need a more comprehensive approach to protect against these sophisticated attacks.
Transforming Identity Security: Three Basic Steps
To defend against cross-domain attacks, organizations simply go beyond patchwork solutions and adopt a unified, comprehensive strategy that prioritizes identity security:
1. Identity at the core: laying the foundation
Modern security starts with consolidating threat detection and response across identity, endpoints, and the cloud within a single platform. By putting identity at the center, this approach eliminates the inefficiencies of fragmented tools and creates a cohesive foundation for comprehensive protection. A unified platform accelerates response times and simplifies security operations. It also reduces costs by improving collaboration between teams and replacing disjointed point solutions with a streamlined architecture that protects the individual against cross-domain threats.
2. Identity Visibility: Seeing the Big Picture
Strong identity protection requires end-to-end visibility across hybrid environments spanning on-premises, cloud, and SaaS applications. Unification of security tools eliminates blind spots and loopholes that adversaries like to exploit. Full integration with on-premises directories, cloud-based identity providers such as Entra ID and Okta, and SaaS applications provides a complete view of all access points. This full-spectrum visibility transforms identification systems into hardened perimeters, significantly reducing adversaries’ ability to penetrate.
3. Personal protection in real time
With identity as the focal point for unification and visibility, organizations can move to real-time detection and response. The cloud is its own platform, as is artificial intelligence CrowdStrike Falcon® Cyber Security Platformuses cross-domain telemetry to secure identity, endpoints, and cloud environments by detecting, investigating, and neutralizing threats. Features such as risk-based conditional access and behavior analysis proactively protect identity systems by blocking attacks before they escalate. This unified approach provides a faster response than fragmented systems and a decisive advantage against today’s adversaries.
Putting Identity into Practice: CrowdStrike Falcon Identity Protection
When it comes to comprehensive defense against cross-domain attacks, CrowdStrike sets the industry standard with the Falcon platform. It uniquely combines identity, endpoint and cloud security with world-class adversarial threat intelligence and real-time threat discovery for a holistic defense against identity-based attacks. CrowdStrike’s approach is based on:
- Association: The Falcon platform enables security teams to control all levels of security – identity threat detection and response (ITDR), endpoint security, cloud security and next generation security information and event management (SIEM) – all through one agent and console on one unified platform. With the Falcon platform, CrowdStrike customers on average understand up to Increase in work efficiency by 84%. in response to cross-domain threats.
- 24/7 visibility with managed ITDR: Many organizations facing resource constraints are turning to managed service providers for security. CrowdStrike provides the best of both worlds—combining top-tier ITDR capabilities with industry-leading expert management—to implement a robust and mature identity security program without the work, cost, and time required for in-house development.
- Real-time protection: With CrowdStrike Falcon® Identity Protection, organizations can detect and stop real-time identity breaches across the entire hybrid identity space. CrowdStrike’s industry-leading team of elite threat hunters monitors customer environments for suspicious activity 24/7 and actively scours the dark web for stolen credentials. CrowdStrike customers average up to 85% faster response to threats driven by full visibility of the attack path.
The future of identity security
As adversaries exploit the seams between identity, endpoint and cloud environments, the need for a unified approach to security has never been greater. The CrowdStrike Falcon platform provides the integration, visibility and real-time response capabilities needed to directly combat cross-domain threats. Combining advanced technology with world-class threat intelligence and expert management, CrowdStrike enables organizations to strengthen their defenses and stay ahead of evolving attack tactics.
