Top 4 Evolutions in Identity Exploitation 2025
Some security leaders now say identity exploitation is the new big player in the threat landscape. In cloud-driven, SaaS-dependent, and AI-powered tech environments, attackers no longer need to break through firewalls or exploit zero-day vulnerabilities to gain access. Instead, they simply steal, manipulate, or exploit identities—human and non-human alike.
When you think of identity exploits it’s understandable to jump to thoughts of stolen passwords or hacked accounts for sale. But identity exploitation is moving beyond those traditional risks. This post explores the top evolutions in identity exploitation to watch out for in 2025.
1. Non-Human Identity Exploitation
Cloud environments increasingly rely on machine identities—service accounts, API keys, and automated workflows—to keep systems running efficiently. However, these non-human identities often operate with overprivileged access, lack visibility, and are rarely subjected to the same stringent security controls as human accounts. Attackers recognize this and have shifted tactics to target these overlooked identities, knowing that compromising a machine identity can yield long-term, undetected access.
Because many organizations still lack real-time monitoring for their machine identities, these attacks can persist for weeks or months before detection. Consider an attacker who gains access to an exposed API key in a public GitHub repository. Unlike stolen user credentials, which might trigger an MFA prompt or unusual login alert, a compromised API key provides immediate and direct access to cloud resources without any friction. From there, the attacker can spin up rogue virtual machines, extract sensitive data, or manipulate CI/CD pipelines to insert malicious code into production systems.
Some preventative measures you can take include:
- Enforce least privilege access on machine identities.
- Implement secrets scanning in CI/CD pipelines.
- Rotate API keys and service credentials regularly.
2. More Phishing-as-a-Service (PhaaS) Kits
Phishing has long been a top threat to identities, but the rise of Phishing-as-a-Service (PhaaS) has made it easier, faster, and more scalable for attackers of all skill levels to execute highly convincing campaigns and break into your valuable accounts. These kits come pre-loaded with realistic templates mimicking Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Okta, complete with real-time AiTM (adversary-in-the-middle) proxies that steal session tokens, which allows attackers to bypass important extra measures like MFA entirely.
What makes modern PhaaS kits particularly dangerous is their automation and AI integration. Attackers can now deploy AI-generated, context-aware phishing emails that reference real events (e.g., a CEO’s travel plans or a new HR policy) and tailor attacks in real-time based on user interactions. With attackers refining their social engineering tactics using AI and selling access to breached accounts on dark web markets, PhaaS kits are turning phishing into an even more prominent part of the underground cybercrime economy.
As Trend Micro puts it, this change has also turned phishing from a highly skilled attack into a pay-to-play industry where bad actors with perhaps less knowledge but a lot of funds can carry out complex attacks. The best defense is better preparation for your employees that goes beyond simple phishing awareness.
3. SaaS Account Takeovers
As businesses rely on SaaS platforms for everything from collaboration to customer data management, these accounts have become high-value targets for attackers. A single compromised SaaS account can give adversaries access to email, file storage, internal chat logs, and even developer environments, often without triggering security alerts due to widespread trust in OAuth-based authentication.
With the explosion of Shadow IT—unauthorized or unsanctioned SaaS applications used by employees—attackers are finding new ways to infiltrate businesses. According to Gartner, 41 percent of employees use shadow IT. Security teams often focus on securing officially approved applications like Microsoft 365 and Salesforce, but many employees use third-party tools for collaboration, productivity, or file sharing without IT oversight. These tools regularly have weak security configurations, lax authentication controls, and broad permissions.
Mitigation tips:
- Use a CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker) to monitor unauthorized SaaS use and block high-risk applications.
- Conduct regular exposure audits to identify corporate data unintentionally shared via public SaaS platforms.
- Educate your employees on the risks of reusing credentials and using Shadow IT applications without IT approval.
4. API Exploitation for Identity Harvesting
APIs serve as the backbone of modern digital ecosystems by facilitating seamless integrations between the SaaS platforms, third-party apps, and enterprise services your business uses. Unlike traditional credential phishing or database breaches, API-based identity harvesting enables attackers to exfiltrate data directly from live systems, often without triggering conventional security alarms. These attacks grow in popularity as more services connect to each other using APIs to drive innovation and new service features.
Usually, attackers identify APIs used by an organization’s authentication or customer management systems, often through public API documentation, exposed API keys, or leaked configurations in GitHub repositories. And since many APIs lack proper authentication controls, savvy hackers can query user data without authentication or through insecure tokens. Automated scripts perform credential stuffing, enumeration attacks, or token replay attacks, extracting usernames, emails, and OAuth tokens at scale.
Tips to reduce this risk:
- Implement strict API authentication using OAuth 2.0 with properly scoped permissions, rather than relying on weak API keys or bearer tokens.
- Monitor API traffic for anomalies, such as high-volume identity queries or repeated failed authentication attempts.
- Enforce rate limiting and anomaly detection to detect and block mass enumeration attacks.
The Expanding Attack Surface of Identity Exploitation
The harsh reality of the identity landscape now is that identity is no longer just a security measure—it’s also an attack surface. The challenge is to stay on top of trends and adopt best practices that reduce this attack surface of identity exploitation. With phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) kits making even classic social engineering more sophisticated and scalable, your business must move beyond basic security awareness training and actively test its defenses against real-world phishing tactics.
By running controlled phishing simulations, security teams can identify weak points in employee awareness, refine incident response strategies, and train users to recognize modern phishing techniques—including MFA bypass attacks and AI-enhanced social engineering.
Consider leveraging phishing simulations from DIESEC to test, train, and strengthen your organization’s resilience against identity-based threats. We’ll use machine learning to send automated phishing emails to your employees and make them more challenging as each user learns to recognize the phishing attempts.