Cyber Insight bolsters identity protection with Sophos ITDR integration

Cyber Insight Enhances Identity Security for South African Businesses with Sophos ITDR.

Cybersecurity firm Cyber Insight has deepened its partnership with Sophos through the integration of Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) into its managed detection and response (MDR) services — giving South African organisations stronger protection against the surge in identity-based attacks.

The move reflects a growing recognition that identity has become one of the most targeted points in the modern enterprise, with threat actors increasingly exploiting misconfigurations, weak access policies, and stolen credentials to gain access to sensitive data.

According to Sophos research, 90% of organisations suffered at least one identity-related breach in the past year, while 95% of Microsoft Entra ID environments had at least one critical misconfiguration that could enable privilege escalation or unauthorised access.

“We’re seeing identity emerge as the new attack surface,” said Deon Smal, CEO of Cyber Insight. “Attackers no longer need to hack their way in — they simply log in. Our goal is to give clients visibility into identity risk so they can close gaps before credentials are misused.”

Next-generation identity detection and response

Sophos ITDR continuously monitors corporate identity environments, scanning for misconfigurations, risky permissions, and leaked credentials across the dark web. When suspicious behaviour is detected — such as logins from unknown devices or geographic anomalies — the system can automatically initiate defensive actions like account locking, password resets, and session revocation.

Integrated within Sophos XDR and MDR, the solution allows Cyber Insight’s analysts to correlate identity telemetry with endpoint and network activity, ensuring that threats are identified and neutralised faster.

“Traditional defences are no longer enough,” added Smal. “As businesses adopt hybrid work and cloud services, their exposure expands. ITDR gives us the context to detect and respond to identity threats in real time — something every modern organisation now needs.”

Addressing a local challenge with global intelligence

Identity compromise has become a major vector for ransomware, insider threats, and business email compromise in South Africa’s mid-market sector. Many local companies lack the in-house expertise to continuously monitor identity risk across users, applications, and devices — a gap Cyber Insight is aiming to close with managed ITDR.

The service aligns with global best-practice frameworks, including CIS and NIST, helping clients strengthen compliance and governance without adding administrative overhead.

“What makes this powerful is that it’s proactive,” said Smal. “Instead of waiting for an alert or a breach, we continuously evaluate each organisation’s identity posture and address weaknesses before they can be exploited. It’s a measurable way to reduce cyber risk.”

Empowering South African businesses

The addition of Sophos ITDR reinforces Cyber Insight’s broader vision of bridging global cybersecurity innovation with local execution. The company continues to expand its managed security services portfolio, giving South African enterprises and SMEs access to the same intelligence and automation tools used by global organisations — without the complexity or cost of building these capabilities internally.

As identity-based attacks become increasingly common in Africa’s growing digital economy, Cyber Insight believes visibility and proactive detection will be critical differentiators for business resilience in 2026 and beyond.

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