| | FEBRUARY 20188CIOReviewMy journey to my current role as the CVP of Microsoft's Identity Division started with an engineering internship on Microsoft's Exchange team in 1996. I've had the honor of partnering with countless businesses to help them transform their operations technologies from being hosted in a server down the hallway to a highly scalable data center in the cloud. I've had a front row seat to the dramatic evolution of business and technology in the last 20 years. Presently, this evolution is being driven by two opposing technology trends: the transformative power of the cloud, and the mounting cost of cybercrime.In the early days of my career, we experienced the Internet by trading email and geeking out on newsgroups with other "early adopters." Now we live online, with dozens of online identities, constantly logging into everything from social media pages and corporate email to apps and shopping networks. For most of us, the Internet is literally "in our pocket" all the time ­ the ultimate realization of "information at your fingertips." The Internet has become an indispensable utility as we go through our daily banking, shopping, communicating and working.What we don't always appreciate is that each one of our accounts ­ every single online identity ­ presents criminals with an opportunity to take value from the things those accounts guard, and sabotage our lives. Cybercriminals are patient, and persistent. On average, an attacker will lurk on a network for 140 days before they are detected. Acquiring someone's credentials and using them to gradually elevate permission has become the most effective means of reaching lucrative company data.Identities are the New PerimeterCompanies face remarkable pressure to ensure that their employee and customer data are protected. Proven benefits in productivity, efficiency, and cost savings are driving the economy's mobile first, cloud first digital transformation. Realizing these benefits requires secure authentication in the new paradigm. Users are made more productive with highly personal and relevant information delivered at the right time and device. SaaS apps running on third party data centers and accessed by personal, mobile devices on remote networks are the norm in this brave new world. To realize this promise in a world where you don't own the device, the service, or the point of access requires embracing identity as the control plane, and protecting your data and identities in a cloud first, mobile first paradigm.We all know that a single breach in trust can bring the largest business to a halt. To see this in action, look no further than the headlines on your favorite news site. Every week we hear about new data breaches and identity thefts where a single compromised credential leads to a staggering data loss.· In 2016, more than three billion customer data records were lost to high-profile attacks· More than 60 percent of all data breaches in 2016 can be traced back to compromised identitiesAs the Internet has graduated from basic websites to a constellation of services working together, establishing trusted identities has become critical for the web-based economy to function. Recent cyber attacks show how well criminals know that a compromised identity is the best way to gain illicit access. THE NEW BUSINESS IMPERATIVE: IDENTITY PROTECTIONBy Joy Chik, Corporate VP, MicrosoftJoy Chik
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