EMA Report: Unknown Vulnerabilities Emerge as Top Active Directory Security Concern

New EMA research: 86% of organizations plan to increase AD security investment as attacks on Sinclair, Olympus and a Nokia subsidiary raise awareness; the post summarizes data on attack frequency, success rates and pen-test results.

Shows how Active Directory computer account properties expose OS and service pack levels queryable by any domain user, enabling faster identification of high-risk unpatched Windows assets.

Semperis argues AI-driven attacks are outpacing identity teams as machine identities outnumber human ones 10:1, and urges building organization-wide cyber resilience around hybrid identity protection before the next crisis.

Reprinted from Network Security: two decades on, Active Directory remains foundational yet largely unchanged; its default-open posture and unconstrained delegation—plus the SolarWinds example—argue for rethinking how AD is secured.

Why it may be time to leave ADFS in hybrid environments: its complexity expands the attack surface, and SolarWinds showed an on-premises flaw can compromise the Azure AD tenant; Microsoft recommends migrating to Azure AD Application Proxy.

May 2021 roundup: SolarWinds actors escalated via Constant Contact (~150 orgs' email); APTs hit a U.S. local government via Fortinet flaws; Colonial Pipeline targeted Windows; Conti used domain credentials against Ireland's Health Service.