New SailPoint Research Highlights Need for Stronger Identity Security in Financial Services

Identity-related breaches are growing in financial services: 93% of respondents report experiencing a breach within the past two years

SailPoint Technologies, Inc., a leader in enterprise identity security, released “The state of identity security 2023: A spotlight on financial services,” a comprehensive report highlighting the increased need for strong identity security in the financial service industry. The report found that while a growing number of financial services firms are prioritizing identity security, attacks remain dangerously commonplace, with 93% of respondents reporting that they have experienced a breach within the past two years.

“The financial services industry deals with large amounts of sensitive data and personal identifiable information, making it a prime target for attackers”

The report includes a number of encouraging findings, including 100% of respondents indicating that identity security is either a relatively important, critical, or number one investment priority within the organization. Furthermore, 56% of those surveyed indicated that their organization has fully implemented an identity security program, with 29% stating that their program has been in place for at least two years. These numbers reflect the growing prioritization of identity security across the financial services sector.

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The report also highlights the various identity security challenges financial services organizations face. Among respondents, 91% indicated that they have experienced challenges when it comes to adopting identity security, with the most common being flexibility in integration (38%), high configurability (35%), or being complicated to implement (32%). In addition, nearly all respondents (97%) agreed that their organization’s ability to detect and prevent identity-related security breaches needs improvement. Despite those challenges, 100% of respondents reported experiencing benefits from their identity security solution, including the ability to connect the identity program to horizontal applications (49%), cost and/or time savings within the IT and security teams (45%), and more control and visibility into users (44%).

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“The financial services industry deals with large amounts of sensitive data and personal identifiable information, making it a prime target for attackers,” said Matt Mills, President of Worldwide Field Operations for SailPoint. “This makes strong identity security a necessity. The fact that over half of the surveyed financial services firms have fully implemented an identity security solution is a step in the right direction, but it’s clear that there is still room for improvement. Breaches have long been a fact of life in the financial sector, but implementing a strong identity security solution greatly reduces the potential damage that an attack can incur.”