Active Directory (AD) is the most prolific identity platform in the world. Like many companies already using AD on-premises, you may now be considering extending your identity environment to the cloud to create a hybrid landscape. There are many reasons behind this: resource constraints, strategy evolution, merger, acquisition or otherwise.

We all know identity management and security are critical to hardening cybersecurity ecosystems. We also know that we can make it happen using the many features and functions across Active Directory (AD), Entra ID and Microsoft 365. The challenge is making sure these are deployed in a way that allows them to work seamlessly together, staying aligned even in environments where there’s fluidity and decentralization.

Passwords are bad, and our whole industry is trying to move away from these simple strings granting access to our systems. But change is slow, and adopting newer standards is difficult, even if passwords are deeply problematic. Now, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is updating the core standard for authentication – and it adopts the “new school” of password policies.