Is Identity an Enabler or a Risk? Xalient’s Dave McGrail Shares Insight on Enterprise Times Podcast

With identity sitting at the heart of cybersecurity strategy, businesses face an ever-growing challenge: is identity an enabler of transformation – or a growing risk? 

In a recent episode of the Enterprise Times podcast, Xalient’s Head of Business Consultancy, Dave McGrail,  joined host Ian Murphy at Infosecurity Europe to explore this critical question.

Despite significant investment in identity and access management (IAM) solutions globally, identity remains one of the weakest links in many organisations’ security postures. According to McGrail, that’s often because identity has long been seen as a side issue – “a nice to have until there’s a breach.” 

“Identity hasn’t traditionally been viewed as an IT or even a security problem,” McGrail explains. “It often falls under a CISO’s budget as a line item, but it’s not prioritised—until something goes wrong.” 

As digital transformation accelerates and agentic AI becomes mainstream, the challenge is only increasing. Today, up to 97% of identities within enterprise systems are non-human – from bots to software agents – many of which require access to systems, services, and data to operate. That percentage is expected to rise as automation grows.