In a recent Q&A published on The Last Watchdog, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Byron V. Acohido sits down with Rita Gurevich to unpack a critical but largely invisible cybersecurity crisis: the chaotic state of identity and access management within modern organizations.
Despite widespread investment in PAM (Privileged Access Management) and IGA (Identity Governance & Administration) tools, most companies still can’t answer basic questions about who has access to what—or who’s responsible for managing it. This accountability gap creates a dangerous blind spot where outdated permissions, forgotten accounts, and unauthorized admin rights silently accumulate, leaving businesses exposed to threats they can’t even see.
The discussion reveals how identity management is evolving from a back-office IT function into the cornerstone of enterprise security. As vendors like CyberArk and Palo Alto Networks advance identity intelligence capabilities, organizations finally have the tools to spot access risks before they become breaches. Acohido positions identity governance not just as another security control, but as the foundation that makes Zero Trust architectures actually work—bringing visibility and accountability to what has long been cybersecurity’s biggest blind spot.
