Acknowledgments: Special thanks to Aimee Simpson and Scott Riley for their contributions to this write-up.
Attackers don't really need to break into your business anymore. They can just log in as you instead. Maybe they bought a valid set of your credentials off the dark web for a few dollars. Maybe they tricked you into pasting a command into a dialog box. Maybe your session token leaked out of a browser cache. Either way, there's no need to break in when they can walk through the front door with a completely legitimate identity.
Most teams think they've handled security once multi-factor authentication (MFA) is turned on, but that's just the start. Identity hardening means every control protecting an identity, a device, a session, or an app stays enforced, gets monitored continuously, and keeps pace as attackers change tactics. Here's what that actually looks like in practice, and where to start.
Why is identity the easiest way in?
Cybercrime is a business in one of the world's largest economies, and like any business, it's always chasing the highest return with the least effort.
Identity compromise delivers both. It's cheaper and stealthier than network perimeter compromise, and once inside, it opens far more doors. With so much information shifting to cloud services, a single stolen login can open email, files, finance systems, and HR platforms in one motion. Credentials and session tokens are cheap and easy to buy, and once an attacker has them, they can move as fast as any legitimate employee.
This is a result of our own doing, but not out of bad intentions. Most organizations have spent the last several years centralizing logins into a single sign-on system through Google or Microsoft Entra. That consolidation is good for convenience and even good for security in a lot of ways, but it also means a CRM, a finance platform, project management tools, email, and file storage now all sit behind the same front door. When that door gets breached, the blast radius is much bigger than it used to be.
Here's how easy it actually is to steal credentials right now. Attackers trick you into running their commands, and within minutes, they've got your sensitive information.
ClickFix is one example: a fake CAPTCHA "verification" prompt walks a user through pasting a command into the Windows dialog Run box. Other variants swap the lure, like a fake file or a fake download page instead of a verification check, but the mechanic stays the same.
In every version, the user runs the malicious code themselves, so there's nothing unusual for a filter to flag, just an infostealer quietly installing itself and harvesting every credential and session token in the browser cache, straight into the identity behind that single sign-on.
MFA is the starting line, not the finish line
Ask most teams what identity hardening means and they'll probably point to MFA right away. That's a fair place to start, but it's only part of the picture. MFA is one control in a much bigger system, and treating it as the finish line instead of the starting point leaves a lot of exposure for attackers to mess with.
Think of security as a set of stacked layers, each one covering for the gaps in the last. MFA closes one hole. Overprivileged accounts, weak password policies, default settings vendors ship out of the box, and unmonitored session tokens are all separate holes that need their own attention.
Even within MFA itself, there's a wide range of maturity depending on the controls in place around it. Two organizations can both have it turned on and still be worlds apart, with one locked down tightly and the other exposed in ways nobody's checked for. The stronger setup adds conditional policies around which devices and locations are allowed to log in, blocks countries where the business has no employees, and flags known shady IP ranges.
Detection carries as much weight as prevention here. If an employee's MFA-approved session gets stolen, that token walks straight past every policy already in place. Without a way to spot a login from an unusual device or location right after a legitimate one, a stolen session can sit active and unnoticed for hours or more.
MFA bypasses add to the problem. Trusted device abuse, risky app consent, and emergency MFA exceptions that never get closed out are all quiet paths around the exact control a team thinks is protecting them.
A small business, one exception, and a lesson in MFA
It only takes one exception to undo years of good security work. We watched this play out with a small real estate firm, in business for decades, that had its security locked down well by its MSP. But there was one exception. The CEO didn't like using MFA and pushed the MSP to turn it off on his account.
Eventually, the MSP gave in to the customer, which led to a business email compromise (BEC) attack on the CEO's account. Without MFA standing in the way, the attacker sat quietly inside the organization, watching how the CEO communicated with his finance team. The pattern was simple: a short email naming a customer, an account number, and an amount, followed by a one-word confirmation from finance. The attacker copied that pattern exactly, starting with a small test payment, comfortably under $1,000. It went through. Over time, the requested amounts went up until the CEO noticed the account balance looked off and asked for a transaction list. Finance sent him back the email he supposedly wrote authorizing the transfers, which started to quickly unravel what happened.
One personal exception, and the business almost missed payroll. Every other control had been in good shape. The one exception, granted because MFA felt inconvenient to one person, was enough to open the door.
Small businesses often assume attackers aren't interested in them. That assumption couldn't be farther from reality. Attackers aren't targeting a specific company most of the time. They're running a numbers game, hitting as many organizations as possible because a percentage of them will pay. Nobody's off the radar because they have a smaller bank account.
Identity security, done well
A mature identity solution looks different once the exceptions get closed and the layers are in place. It prioritizes based on what's actually happening in the threat landscape, not just what a compliance list says to check off, and it gets those controls rolled out and enforced everywhere, not just written down somewhere.
Identity hardening is a continuous, evolving process instead of a project with an end date, and it builds evidence along the way: a rising secure score, falling incident volume, a clear log of what's been fixed, and active tracking of exceptions so they don't quietly turn into permanent holes.
That maturity shows up in a few concrete places:
Enforced controls with coverage across the whole organization, not just parts of it
Less exposure, with fewer unmanaged privileged accounts, stale accounts, and open legacy authentication paths
Drift getting caught and fixed faster over time
Together, those outcomes push your secure score up, cut identity incidents, shrink business disruption, and let the program roll out with less friction for users as it matures.
Your identity hardening checklist
Identity hardening has a shelf life. Microsoft and Google change licensing, settings, and defaults. Compliance frameworks evolve. And attackers adapt even faster than all of that.
Get started with what you can fix this week. Then keep building a regular habit of finding and closing gaps before the next audit or incident forces the issue.
Use this as your checklist:
Your next best moves
Block sign-ins from countries and regions where you don't have employees or legitimate business operations.
Review exceptions for travel, contractors, and business-critical access, then set an owner and expiration date for each one.
Enable email click-through protection, such as Microsoft Defender Safe Links, to stop users from reaching phishing pages that make it past initial filtering.
Confirm MFA is enforced for every account, including executives and administrators. Close temporary exceptions instead of letting them become permanent.
Document the identity controls your organization relies on, including MFA, conditional access, device requirements, privileged access, and phishing protection.
Build for the future
Review your formal security policy at least once a year, then work toward a quarterly review cycle.
Check for configuration drift monthly. Review high-risk changes, MFA exceptions, privileged accounts, legacy authentication, and new or unmanaged devices.
Review attack-driven changes weekly when possible, especially new phishing tactics, identity bypasses, risky app consent, and unusual login patterns.
Reassess country and region access policies when your workforce, travel needs, or business operations change.
Track every exception, who approved it, why it exists, and when it must be reviewed or closed.
Keep evidence of progress: secure-score movement, open exceptions, identity incidents, and a record of remediated issues.
Register and inventory the devices that access company apps and data.
Find and remove stale local administrator rights.
Require managed apps, such as Outlook, on phones and tablets that access sensitive business data.
Prioritize executives and other high-value users whose accounts can expose the most sensitive data.
Add device and location requirements around sign-ins so a stolen credential or session has fewer places to work.
Test changes with affected users, then roll them out in phases to reduce disruption to daily work.
Aim for resilience over prevention. You won't prevent every compromise forever, but you can catch drift, close gaps, and make identity security harder to bypass as the environment changes.