Identity security processes remain largely manual
We have incredibly advanced systems managing everything from global logistics to AI training pipelines, yet we’re managing identity security with spreadsheets, emails, and follow-up tickets. That’s inertia and it’s exactly where many organizations still are.
Most companies think they’ve “got it covered” because cybersecurity boxes are ticked. Passwords exist, MFA is enabled, and access is revoked eventually, usually after someone nudges IT. But when less than 4% of security teams have fully automated their identity workflows, we’re clearly not as protected as we assume. According to Cerby’s 2025 Identity Automation Gap report, these workflows, enrolling in multi-factor authentication (MFA), keeping credentials secure, de-provisioning access, are still being run by people. Not systems.
And this reliance on human action isn’t just inefficient; it’s dangerous. Verizon’s 2025 Data Breach report shows that human error is responsible for 60% of breaches. Frankly, that’s predictable. Manual steps mean inevitable mistakes, and cyber attackers know this.
If you’re running an enterprise today and haven’t made identity automation a core priority, you’re betting against probability. The bigger your footprint, the higher your risk. The smartest play is to reduce your dependency on humans to do what machines will do better, faster, and, most importantly, more consistently.
Core identity workflows executed manually create inconsistency and heightened risk
For most companies, the real breakdown is in how people use them. Credentials are being shared via email and spreadsheets. MFA is optional in some departments and enforced in others. Access to sensitive systems is managed more by habit and outdated tickets than defined processes.
This reveals a simple truth: inconsistency is the enemy of security. According to Cerby’s data, 41% of users still share or update passwords manually, without any oversight or encryption. 89% of companies rely on users to enable MFA themselves. And 59% of IT teams are still manually provisioning or removing access. That’s a system primed for failure.
We’ve seen what this looks like in practice. A user forgets to update their credentials. An employee leaves, but their admin credentials linger in a third-party tool nobody tracked. These small misses pile up. That’s when attackers walk through the door.
For executives, this is where the risk becomes measurable, not in hypothetical breaches but in operational exposure, compliance failures, and reputational damage. Fixing this means making them work together, automatically, without depending on people to remember what must happen.
Security can’t be a memory-based system. It has to be engineered.
Manual identity processes have already resulted in real-world security breaches
Companies are experiencing real fallout from manual identity management. Breaches linked to simple human processes, forgotten deprovisioning, outdated credentials, weak access control, are causing direct damage to businesses.
The Ponemon Institute found that 52% of enterprises have suffered a security breach due to manual identity work in disconnected apps. That tells you nearly half of organizations are carrying unnecessary exposure in systems they trust daily. The results go well beyond IT cleanup. Of those affected, 43% reported losing customers. Another 36% lost business partners. That’s top-line revenue, long-term trust, and market position all impacted by something avoidable.
When identity is managed manually, even small lapses have ripple effects. A single credential left unchecked can undermine years of brand credibility. And this risk scales as companies grow, acquire new tools, or expand into new markets.
If your organization is investing in AI, cloud, customer platforms, or digital transformation, and still managing access manually, you’re only solving half the puzzle. The breach is a business failure that leadership owns.
The automation gap in identity security stems from application fragmentation
The root of the problem is complexity. Most enterprise environments are a mix of SaaS products, mobile applications, cloud-based tools, legacy on-prem systems, and everything in between. They’ve grown fast. They’ve layered tools from different vendors with different standards. And now, IT and security teams are left trying to force cohesion onto a fragmented map.
What makes it worse is that most business-critical apps don’t support the identity standards needed for seamless integration. Cerby points out that the majority fall outside those best-practice frameworks. So teams build workarounds, password managers, manual scripts, one-off tools. They solve the immediate issue, but create long-term friction.
There’s also a sense of false security. When leaders see dashboards filled with tools and authentication systems, it looks like complete coverage. But underneath that surface-level order is a lot of manual stitching. Shadow IT continues to expand as departments onboard their own platforms. And most of those systems are off the governance radar.
Fixing this doesn’t require disrupting everything. It requires visibility and integration. Fragmentation can’t be solved by adding more tools. It has to be addressed through automation frameworks that unify identity tasks across all platforms, whether or not they support native connections. That’s the only path to sustainable control.
For C-suite leaders, this complexity issue boils down to a strategic question: are you optimizing for speed or for control? Because manual processes might move fast in the short term, but they don’t scale without breaking things that matter.
Progress toward automating identity security is achievable without completely overhauling existing systems
Many execs assume that automating identity workflows means rebuilding everything from scratch. That’s not required. Effective progress doesn’t demand a rip-and-replace strategy. It requires augmentation, filling in the gaps with frameworks and solutions that extend automation into legacy and disconnected environments.
Most organizations already have the core components of identity infrastructure in place. The problem is, they’re incomplete or not connected. Automation isn’t about throwing away what works. It’s about enabling those systems to function without constantly relying on human intervention. That includes automating how MFA is enforced, how credentials are rotated, and how access is revoked instantly once someone leaves a role, a team, or the company.
Forward-thinking security teams are already building this completeness into their stack. Some are exploring AI-driven tools to bring consistency and speed to identity tasks that still require a human today. That’s where things get interesting. While 78% of security leaders still don’t fully trust AI alone to automate core identity functions, nearly half, 45%, support a human-in-the-loop model. That tells us trust is evolving. Control can remain in human hands, but the execution can and should be system-driven.
For C-suite leaders, this is a matter of operational leverage. You don’t need to wait for every app in your environment to support open standards. You just need a strategy that extends security to every environment, cloud, on-prem, SaaS, or hybrid. Automation lets you scale faster, close vulnerabilities faster, and respond to increasing compliance pressure faster.
Stability, visibility, and trust move together. If your organization still relies on follow-ups and manual checks to secure identity, you’re not lagging, you’re leaking. and that’s a fixable problem.
Key highlights
- Identity still runs on people: Most organizations rely heavily on manual actions for identity security workflows, exposing them to preventable errors and breaches. Leaders should prioritize end-to-end automation to reduce reliance on human intervention and improve consistency.
- Manual workflows increase security risk: Insecure credential practices, inconsistent MFA adoption, and manual access management create widespread vulnerabilities. Executives should enforce centralized controls and replace ad-hoc processes with automated enforcement.
- Breaches are already happening: Over half of enterprises have suffered breaches due to manual identity tasks, leading to customer and partner losses. Leadership must treat identity automation as a business-critical investment to mitigate real, recurring losses.
- Complexity fuels the automation gap: App sprawl, legacy systems, and shadow IT make full identity coverage difficult and fragmented. Leaders should push for automation frameworks that unify identity across the entire tech stack instead of patching short-term gaps.
- Full replacement isn’t required to make progress: Organizations can automate identity functions without rebuilding their infrastructure by extending automation into existing systems. Executives should back practical integration strategies and support AI-human collaboration to scale automation with control.
