In the past several years, cyberattacks have shaken some of the world’s most high-profile organizations. A large healthcare provider faced a ransomware incident that crippled operations nationwide. Another healthcare conglomerate reported the exposure of data affecting over 100 million individuals. Even a leading technology provider suffered an identity-based breach that allowed attackers to exfiltrate sensitive executive communications.
These weren’t firewall breaches. They weren’t zero-day exploits in obscure systems. In nearly every case, the attack vector was identity - misused, misconfigured, or compromised.
The message is clear: In a world where users, devices, apps, and data live beyond the traditional network edge, identity is the new perimeter. Boundaries are now defined to individuals, rather than their location or a specific geography. If you can’t secure who is accessing your systems, it doesn’t matter where they are. It’s time to rethink how we approach security in today’s cloud-first era — and that starts with identity.
For decades, organizations secured themselves with a simple model: to keep the bad actors out, trust everything inside the firewall. But in a post-pandemic, cloud-first world, that model no longer applies.
What changed?
Security can no longer be based on location or device alone. Instead, the access point we can control — and audit — is identity.
Every digital action is tied to an identity: a person, a device, a workload, or a service principle. That’s why identity is now the logical place to enforce security controls to determine who has access to which resources, from what device, and why they require access.
With Microsoft Entra ID at the heart of modern identity infrastructure, we can:
In short: identity enables granular, contextual, and adaptive security that scales across your environment.
Consider a large university that once relied on VPNs for all staff and faculty access. When hybrid learning became the norm, VPNs strained under the increased load, and IT struggled to manage secure access for thousands of users working across unmanaged networks and devices.
By shifting to Microsoft Entra and adopting an identity-first approach:
The result? Secure, Zero Trust access to both cloud and on-premises resources, all without the complexity of legacy VPN solutions. IT gained centralized visibility, the user experience improved dramatically, and governance was fully aligned with institutional policy.
Not all organizations make the identity shift smoothly. Common roadblocks include:
Identity is a powerful control point, but only when properly managed across its entire lifecycle.
Here’s how to adopt a more identity-centric approach in your own environment:
Network boundaries are porous. Devices are mobile. Cloud apps are everywhere. But identity is the common thread, the new perimeter and your best shot at managing access securely.
Securing “who” is more effective than securing “where.”
Coming up next week: A deep dive into Microsoft Entra ID Governance and how it streamlines access control and compliance across your digital estate.
Principal Architect
Based out of the New York Metro/Northeast Region, Frank has 25+ years in the IT industry. Frank provides strategic architecture and consulting to organizations looking to improve security and achieve Zero Trust in their environments. His extensive experience in identity and access management, governance, compliance, and risk management allow him to understand a client’s business needs and how to properly implement the right technology to solve specific identity challenges.
