INFOGRAPHIC
As cyberwarfare intensifies across Israel and the Mediterranean, a new CXO Priorities survey reveals a troubling reality: most organisations still lack the identity systems needed to defend against politically motivated threats.
Geopolitics meets the cloud
Nearly 39 % of organisations surveyed reported they have already experienced politically motivated cyberattacks. These, unfortunately, are real circumstances rather than mere fears. In such environments, traditional security models are not only outdated but also highly risky.
Cybersecurity no longer focuses only on firewalls and endpoint alerts in Israel and the Mediterranean. In a region where cyberwarfare is as much about politics as technology, identity has become the new battleground. It has expanded beyond just ransomware, malware, or phishing.
Large and small organisations across the region face significant pressure to modernise their defences, as it now becomes a matter of survival.
A new CXO Priorities survey, conducted in partnership with Okta, provides an unfiltered view of how 30 senior technology leaders in Israel and neighbouring economies are managing identity and access security in this highstakes environment.
Almost half of the respondents admitted their current identity systems are either only moderately effective or completely ineffective. Therefore, identity is the new boundary and unfortunately, that boundary is fragile.
The idea that a firewall or VPN can protect against targeted campaigns designed to weaken national infrastructure is, quite simply, flawed.
Zero Trust in theory, not yet in practice
Zero Trust has become a buzzword in cybersecurity, but in Israel and the Mediterranean, it remains more of an aspiration than a standard. Only 26 % of surveyed organisations have adopted a Zero Trust approach, while 23 % still rely on patching as a primary tactic, which resembles locking the door after the intruder has already entered.
Why the delay? Cultural resistance, legacy systems, and a lack of internal support continue to impede adoption. However, the urgency is clear: in a region where digital borders are as contested as physical ones, trust must be verified at every level, user, device, network, and application.
Okta plays a unique role here by anchoring Zero Trust in identity. With continuous verification and intelligent access controls, Okta’ s platform ensures that even if an attacker breaches the perimeter, they cannot move laterally through the network.
Cloud complexity and identity gaps
Managing access across a growing cloud infrastructure is one of the greatest challenges IT leaders face today. And according to the survey, only
Can identity systems survive geopolitical cyberwar? Israel’ s security test
www. intelligentcio. com INTELLIGENTCIO EUROPE 47