Persistence via Identity occurs when attackers establish continued access independent of traditional security controls. Even when passwords reset, sessions expire, devices are wiped, or infrastructure changes, the attacker maintains silent control through compromised identity artifacts.
Token-Based Persistence
Long-lived OAuth refresh tokens and service principal secrets provide continuous access without credential re-entry.
Federation Manipulation
SAML signing certificates and federated trust misconfigurations create invisible backdoors into enterprise systems.
Machine Identity Abuse
Automation tokens embedded in CI/CD pipelines and barely monitored machine identities serve as persistent footholds.
Cross-Tenant Paths
External-to-internal cloud trust paths and legacy authentication protocols bypass modern security controls entirely.
Identity persistence represents cloud-native persistence—no malware implants, no binaries, no disk artifacts. This characteristic enables attackers to remain undetected for months while maintaining privileged access across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
Attacker Objectives & Enabling Misconfigurations
Attacker Objectives in Stage 8
Adversaries establish long-term control through identity-layer manipulation, creating resilient access mechanisms that survive typical incident response procedures.
Bypass Security Resets
Maintain access through password changes, MFA re-enrollment, and account recovery processes.
Create Privileged Identities
Establish new application secrets, implant roles via nested groups, and generate cross-tenant trust footholds.
Evade Detection
Operate through identity backdoors that bypass traditional security monitoring and incident response resets.
Persistence at this stage translates to sustained, undetectable control over cloud identity infrastructure—the attacker's ultimate insurance policy.
Achievement of mission goals with sustained access
Identity Persistence: The Attacker's Insurance Policy
Traditional incident response procedures fail against identity-layer persistence. Password resets don't eliminate compromised tokens. MFA re-enrollment doesn't revoke malicious OAuth apps. Device replacement doesn't remove federated trust backdoors. New infrastructure deployments carry forward compromised service principals.
Identity functions as a persistence layer that transcends traditional security boundaries—making it one of the most challenging attack vectors to fully eradicate from enterprise environments.
Why Identity Persistence Is Different
Survives Password Changes
Token-based access mechanisms continue functioning regardless of credential rotation policies.
Bypasses MFA Requirements
Persistent tokens and certificates authenticate without triggering multi-factor challenges.
Invisible to Traditional Tools
No malware signatures, no disk artifacts, no network implants to detect or remove.
Resilient to Infrastructure Changes
Cloud-native persistence mechanisms survive system rebuilds and environment migrations.