The security paradigm has fundamentally shifted: attackers aren't simply breaking in – they're logging in. This transition to valid credential-based threats represents just how the threat landscape has shifted in recent years. It shouldn’t be surprising that organizations will have no choice but to adjust their cyber defense strategies accordingly.
In our most recent threat report “The Modern Threat Actors’ Playbook: How Initial Access and Ransomware Deployment Trends are Shifting in 2025”, eSentire’s Threat Response Unit (TRU) found the use of valid credentials dominated as an initial access vector in 2024. Across all industries it accounted for 49% of initial access into corporate environments.
Unfortunately, many organizations are continuing to invest in threat detection tools while neglecting the critical response capabilities needed to contain identity-based threats effectively.
The evidence is increasingly clear: Detection without the corresponding response capabilities creates significant security exposure.
When compromised credentials can be leveraged within minutes to establish persistence and extract data, the ability to execute rapid containment and response actions becomes as critical as the initial detection itself.
In this blog, we examine why Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) has become essential, how it addresses emerging attack methodologies, and why organizations must integrate identity response into their broader cybersecurity posture.
The Expanding Identity Attack Surface
The identity attack surface has expanded significantly due to the integration of remote and hybrid work models, the widespread adoption of SaaS solutions and cloud, and the growing complexity of federated identity systems.
This expansion has created multiple vectors that sophisticated threat actors methodically exploit:
Credential Abuse Vectors
Threat actors have systematized approaches to credential acquisition and exploitation. Information stealers like Redline and Raccoon malware automatically extract credentials and authentication tokens from endpoint devices, creating scalable credential theft operations.
Dark Web marketplaces facilitate the purchase of previously compromised credentials, enabling attackers to leverage organization-specific account information without deploying malware. Sophisticated phishing campaigns targeting corporate credentials now implement real-time session hijacking through adversary-in-the-middle techniques.
MFA Bypass Techniques
Although multi-factor authentication (MFA) has proven to be a useful control to protect users, it’s not bulletproof. In recent years, it has been increasingly vulnerable to sophisticated bypass methodologies, especially since it has been harder to identify the difference between legitimate and illegitimate logins. Blind trust in MFA is something we caution customers against. Threat actors can still gain access by using token theft techniques to capture and replay authentication approval factors, circumventing the security intent of MFA implementations.
Moreover, MFA fatigue campaigns used by threat actors can automate authentication requests until users approve them through alert exhaustion. Real-time phishing proxies capture and use session tokens despite MFA implementation, while SIM swapping techniques compromise SMS-based verification methods with increasing sophistication.
Lateral Movement Methodologies
Initial access is often just the entry point for identity-based attacks. Dormant or rarely used privileged accounts with excessive permissions can be leveraged for privilege escalation, frequently without triggering detection mechanisms.
Service accounts, which typically receive limited oversight, are commonly used to maintain persistence after an environment has been compromised. Similarly, over-permissioned user accounts allow attackers to escalate from standard access to administrative control by exploiting existing entitlements.
Identity federation across environments introduces cross-domain trust relationships that can create lateral movement opportunities. These pathways often evade traditional security controls and monitoring tools unless detections are engineered, and potentially malicious behavior is closely investigated.
A key challenge in identifying these threats lies in distinguishing legitimate user activity from malicious behavior using valid credentials. Addressing this requires advanced behavioral analytics and correlation across multiple security signals.
The Limits of Threat Detection Without Threat Response
Many organizations have implemented monitoring for identity-based threats but lack strong response or automated containment capabilities. This detection-without-response approach creates vulnerabilities in the security architecture:
Defining Success Metrics
Traditional endpoint-focused metrics often fail to capture the effectiveness of identity security programs. While endpoint detection and response typically measures detection coverage and isolation speed, identity response requires different success criteria.
For example, when defining success metrics for identity threats, your organization should consider the following:
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Measuring the response time in minutes rather than hours, since compromised credentials can be leveraged almost immediately to establish persistence.
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Containing identity threats without disrupting legitimate business operations.
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Overall impact to employees’ experience and productivity since identity response actions can result in revoked user sessions or locking users out.
Increased Attacker Dwell Time
The typical time between initial detection and effective containment often exceeds 72 hours in organizations lacking effective identity response capabilities. Without automated identity response controls, compromised accounts typically remain active for extended periods despite detection.
Attackers can exploit this gap to extract sensitive data, deploy additional persistence mechanisms through OAuth applications and mail forwarding rules, conduct reconnaissance for high-value targets, and prepare more sophisticated attack phases.
Limited Visibility for Persistence Techniques
Traditional endpoint detection and response tools often can’t detect identity-based persistence techniques, such as OAuth applications with delegated permissions, conditional access policy modifications, shadow admin accounts created in cloud environments, and authentication mechanism alterations.
The expanding use of non-corporate devices for accessing cloud resources further complicates visibility, as endpoint protection tools have no presence on personal or contractor devices.
Insufficient Threat Containment Capabilities
When identity compromises are detected, organizations often default to endpoint or network isolation techniques to protect the impacted asset. However, these approaches frequently fail to mitigate the risk, can’t address cloud resource access from unmanaged devices, create significant operational disruption to legitimate users, and may miss containment if the attacker has established multiple access paths.
Moreover, the typical response of disabling VPN access or isolating endpoints is often insufficient against sophisticated adversaries who have already established cloud persistence.
Therefore, effective threat containment requires direct action at the identity level, not just detection or alerting on anomalous authentication patterns.
What Effective Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) Looks Like
Effective ITDR solutions implement comprehensive identity-specific threat containment and remediation actions that significantly reduce attacker capability while minimizing business disruption.
Responding at the identity level ultimately delivers three essential abilities:
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Speed: Automated identity-based responses can act within seconds, significantly reducing the attacker’s time advantage compared to manual investigation and response, which can take hours or even days.
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Accuracy: Response actions can be tightly focused on specific compromised identities, rather than affecting large portions of infrastructure. This improves security outcomes while minimizing disruption.
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Operational continuity: Containing threats at the identity layer helps maintain business operations. Unlike device isolation or network segmentation, identity-level actions reduce the risk of service outages and operational downtime.
Core ITDR Response Actions
Effective identity response requires taking direct security actions at the identity layer rather than relying on network or endpoint controls, such as:
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Targeted account disablement for compromised identities, which immediately terminates access across all connected systems and applications.
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Revoking session tokens across cloud services invalidates existing authenticated sessions, addressing scenarios where endpoint isolation would fail to terminate cloud access.
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Forced credential rotation with complexity enforcement ensures that any exfiltrated credentials become immediately invalid.
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Stepped-up authentication requirements through dynamic policy enforcement enables risk-based access decisions without wholesale account disablement.
Additionally, containing privilege access is an important aspect of an identity response strategy. Some examples of this may include:
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Revoking just-in-time privileged access prevents exploitation of over-permissioned accounts by removing excessive privileges at the first sign of compromise.
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Enforcing conditional access policies based on risk scoring enables dynamic response to abnormal authentication patterns.
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Application permission scoping limits OAuth token abuse by restricting delegated permissions to the minimum required.
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Reducing dynamic permissions based on behavioral anomalies automatically decreases access rights when suspicious activities are detected.
Integrating ITDR with MDR Capabilities
The reality is that ITDR must function as a core component of 24/7 Managed Detection and Response capabilities rather than as an isolated point solution. After all, effective identity response requires depends on coordinated actions across identity, endpoint, and network layers.
Correlated investigation capabilities provide the context necessary to distinguish between normal and malicious authentication behaviour. Enriching alerts with identity telemetry, such as authentication context and account behavior, improves threat investigation quality, enhances detection accuracy, and streamlines response for SOC Cyber Analysts.
Moreover, centralized consoles that support both automated and manual actions give analysts the flexibility to intervene when needed, without sacrificing response speed.
Security operations centers (SOCs) that incorporate these ITDR capabilities into their MDR service often see measurable improvements in the Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Contain (MTTC) for identity-based threats.
In fact, when analyzing incident response data, we see that organizations with mature ITDR capabilities typically contain identity-based attacks 85% faster than those relying solely on endpoint isolation techniques, with corresponding reductions in data exfiltration and lateral movement opportunities.
Why ITDR Must Be Part of Your MDR Strategy
Incorporating ITDR capabilities into an overarching security strategy offers distinct advantages for various organizational stakeholders.
From Threat Detection to Integrated Response
Traditionally, security operations have operated in silos, with endpoint, network, cloud, and identity solutions functioning as independent threat detection and response processes. This fragmentation creates security gaps that sophisticated attackers exploit.
ITDR closes those gaps by delivering coordinated response capabilities across the entire attack surface. Instead of treating identity as an isolated point solution, effective ITDR incorporates identity signals into broader security operations.
By enriching alerts with identity context, ITDR equips both analysts and automated systems with the insight needed to investigate threats accurately and respond quickly. Flexible containment options, executed through centralized consoles, eliminate delays caused by manual handoffs across teams or tools.
ITDR also introduces proactive capabilities, such as identifying excessive permissions and misconfigurations, so organizations can address vulnerabilities before attackers exploit them.
The result is a shift from reactive detection to proactive containment. Organizations that deploy integrated ITDR report 70% faster containment of identity-based threats and an 85% reduction in successful lateral movement, compared to those using traditional controls alone.
Stakeholder Value Realization
Comprehensive Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) delivers measurable value across key stakeholder groups:
For CISOs, ITDR reinforces a resilience-driven security posture by directly addressing identity—the most common initial access vector in modern attacks. It reduces architectural complexity through integrated response across identity, endpoint, and cloud environments, eliminating the need for siloed tools.
With enriched identity telemetry, CISOs gain improved risk quantification via more accurate threat modeling and empirical response data. Measurable improvements in containment and reduced attack success rates also support clearer reporting to boards and regulators.
For Security Operations leaders, ITDR enhances investigative efficiency through identity-enriched telemetry that adds crucial context to threat analysis. Automated containment streamlines response workflows, minimizing manual intervention. Identity-based risk correlation improves alert prioritization, helping teams focus on true threats over routine anomalies.
As a result, organizations typically see 60–80% reductions in mean time to remediation for identity-based incidents. Analysts also spend less time on repetitive containment and more time on proactive threat hunting and strategic improvements.
For business and technology leadership, identity-based response minimizes disruption. Containment actions are precise, reducing the need for broad isolation tactics that impact operations. Security incidents become targeted and manageable, rather than enterprise-wide emergencies.
ITDR strengthens protection for high-value personnel and critical services, lowering overall business risk. Most importantly, security becomes an enabler of digital transformation – supporting innovation while maintaining appropriate safeguards.
Why Choose eSentire MDR for Identity
It’s clear: identity is now the most targeted attack vector in sophisticated breaches and in this evolving threat landscape, monitoring alone is not enough. Organizations need comprehensive identity response capabilities that are fully integrated into broader security operations.
As an IT/Security leader, you must ask a critical question: Can your current tools respond to identity threats or just detect them? The gap between detection and response often determines whether an incident is quickly contained or escalates into a breach.
As adversaries continue to advance their identity-based attack techniques, organizations must adopt equally advanced defense strategies. The most resilient security programs will treat identity as core infrastructure, requiring specialized protection and response mechanisms that work in concert with existing tools.
eSentire MDR for Identity investigates and responds to compromised identities and insider threats across your hybrid cloud environments. We go beyond just controlling and provisioning identity access. The result? You can unify and strengthen your security posture at the identity attack vector by detecting credential misuse, privilege escalation and lateral movement.
To learn more about how eSentire MDR for Identity enables comprehensive identity threat response at speed and scale, contact an eSentire Security Specialist now.
