Project Management Data Security

We lost a $50M deal because of a small investor (6% ownership) from 5 years ago, killed it. Here's what happened. His corporate investor - who he barely remembered from their seed round had just weaponized years of confidential information to kill his company's biggest partnership. Strategic investors are notorious for buying small pieces of equity just to get these rights. The issue is, there was this concept of "information rights" in an investor agreement. This is a seemingly innocent "information rights" clause he never thought twice about. When you give corporate VCs visibility into your: - Product roadmaps - Financial weaknesses - Customer complaints - Technical limitations You're handing ammunition to an entity that may someday compete with you, buy your competitors, or block your partnerships. Especially, if you have a strategic investor on your cap table. This founder gave quarterly updates for years without concern. Then watched helplessly as that same investor shared his company's vulnerabilities with a potential customer, torpedoing a deal that would have 10x'd his business. Strategic investors can bring incredible value, but protect yourself: - Limit information to high-level metrics only - Add 24-month expiration to information rights - Exclude sensitive customer and product data Your information asymmetry is your only advantage. Guard it carefully. #CorporateVC #StartupStrategy #VentureCapital

🚨 AI Privacy Risks & Mitigations Large Language Models (LLMs), by Isabel Barberá, is the 107-page report about AI & Privacy you were waiting for! [Bookmark & share below]. Topics covered: - Background "This section introduces Large Language Models, how they work, and their common applications. It also discusses performance evaluation measures, helping readers understand the foundational aspects of LLM systems." - Data Flow and Associated Privacy Risks in LLM Systems "Here, we explore how privacy risks emerge across different LLM service models, emphasizing the importance of understanding data flows throughout the AI lifecycle. This section also identifies risks and mitigations and examines roles and responsibilities under the AI Act and the GDPR." - Data Protection and Privacy Risk Assessment: Risk Identification "This section outlines criteria for identifying risks and provides examples of privacy risks specific to LLM systems. Developers and users can use this section as a starting point for identifying risks in their own systems." - Data Protection and Privacy Risk Assessment: Risk Estimation & Evaluation "Guidance on how to analyse, classify and assess privacy risks is provided here, with criteria for evaluating both the probability and severity of risks. This section explains how to derive a final risk evaluation to prioritize mitigation efforts effectively." - Data Protection and Privacy Risk Control "This section details risk treatment strategies, offering practical mitigation measures for common privacy risks in LLM systems. It also discusses residual risk acceptance and the iterative nature of risk management in AI systems." - Residual Risk Evaluation "Evaluating residual risks after mitigation is essential to ensure risks fall within acceptable thresholds and do not require further action. This section outlines how residual risks are evaluated to determine whether additional mitigation is needed or if the model or LLM system is ready for deployment." - Review & Monitor "This section covers the importance of reviewing risk management activities and maintaining a risk register. It also highlights the importance of continuous monitoring to detect emerging risks, assess real-world impact, and refine mitigation strategies." - Examples of LLM Systems’ Risk Assessments "Three detailed use cases are provided to demonstrate the application of the risk management framework in real-world scenarios. These examples illustrate how risks can be identified, assessed, and mitigated across various contexts." - Reference to Tools, Methodologies, Benchmarks, and Guidance "The final section compiles tools, evaluation metrics, benchmarks, methodologies, and standards to support developers and users in managing risks and evaluating the performance of LLM systems." 👉 Download it below. 👉 NEVER MISS my AI governance updates: join my newsletter's 58,500+ subscribers (below). #AI #AIGovernance #Privacy #DataProtection #AIRegulation #EDPB

“Mapping Cybersecurity Threats to Defenses: A Strategic Approach to Risk Mitigation” Most of the time we talk about reducing risk by implementing controls, but we don’t talk about if the implemented controls will reduce the Probability or Impact of the Risk. The below matrix helps organizations build a robust, prioritized, and strategic cybersecurity posture while ensuring risks are managed comprehensively by implementing controls that reduces the probability while minimising the impact. Key Takeaways from the Matrix 1. Multi-layered Security: Many controls address multiple attack types, emphasizing the importance of defense in depth. 2. Balance Between Probability and Impact: Controls like patch management and EDR reduce both the likelihood of attacks (probability) and the harm they can cause (impact). 3. Tailored Controls: Some attacks (e.g., DDoS) require specific solutions like DDoS protection, while broader threats (e.g., phishing) are countered by multiple layers like email security, IAM, and training. 4. Holistic Approach: Combining technical measures (e.g., WAF) with process controls (e.g., training, third-party risk management) creates a comprehensive security posture. This matrix can be a powerful tool for understanding how individual security controls align with specific threats, helping organizations prioritize investments and optimize their cybersecurity strategy. Cyber Security News ®The Cyber Security Hub™

I have 6 years of experience and work as a Sr. Security Engineer at Google, and I have seen identity and access management scare a lot of junior security engineers. It is one of the most complex topics in cybersecurity and security interviews. It covers a lot of important topics: Authentication, authorization, tokens, sessions, OAuth, SSO, RBAC, service accounts, secrets, you name it. But once you understand these 15 must-know concepts, everything starts to make a lot more sense. 15 IAM concepts every security engineer should know: 1. Authentication Who are you? 2. Authorization What are you allowed to do? 3. Least privilege Give the minimum access needed. Nothing more. 4. RBAC Access based on role, like admin, analyst, viewer. 5. ABAC Access based on attributes like team, region, device, and environment. 6. MFA A password alone is not enough anymore. 7. Session management Login is not the end. Sessions must expire, rotate, and be invalidated. 8. Access tokens Short-lived proof that lets an app call another system. 9. Refresh tokens Used to get new access tokens without logging in again. 10. OAuth 2.0 A delegated access framework. Very common. Very misunderstood. 11. OpenID Connect Identity layer on top of OAuth. This is how login often works. 12. Service accounts Non-human identities used by apps, jobs, and automation. 13. Workload identity A safer way for workloads to get cloud access without static keys. 14. Secret rotation and revocation If a token, key, or secret leaks, you need to kill and replace it fast. 15. Audit logs and access reviews If you cannot see who accessed what, you are already behind. Most security incidents are not caused by “hackers being geniuses.” They happen because identity was weak, access was too broad, tokens lived too long, or no one checked the logs. If you understand IAM well, a lot of security starts to click for you. -- 📢 Follow saed if you enjoyed this post 🔖 Be sure to subscribe to the newsletter: https://lnkd.in/eD7hgbnk 📹 Reach me on https://lnkd.in/eZ9mU5Ka for open DM's

Why Identity Access Management Is Critical for Modern Enterprises Identity Access Management (IAM) is the vital part of any robust security architecture - especially as traditional perimeters dissolve in today’s distributed environments. For technical leaders and practitioners, effective IAM isn’t just about authentication. It’s about implementing continuous, granular controls that adapt to organizational change and emerging risk. Key pillars include: User Access Reconciliation: Regular alignment of granted permissions with actual entitlements in critical systems is non-negotiable. Automated and periodic reconciliation detects orphaned accounts and excessive privileges, reducing attack surfaces. Privileged Access Management (PAM): High-risk accounts with broad capabilities must be tightly governed. PAM enforces strict controls such as just-in-time elevation, session monitoring, and audit trails to protect sensitive assets from exploitation. Timely Access Revocation: When users change roles or exit, immediate deprovisioning is crucial. Delays can leave dormant accounts vulnerable to misuse or compromise. Automated workflows ensure access rights are always in sync with current employment status and responsibilities. Principle of Least Privilege: Users should have the minimal access needed to perform their functions - nothing more. This foundational control limits exposure and contains lateral movement in case of breaches. Periodic Role Transition Audits: Role transitions are inevitable. Regular reviews of access entitlements ensure that evolving responsibilities are matched by appropriate authorizations, preventing privilege creep and segregation-of-duty violations. In a zero-trust era, identity is the new perimeter. Mature IAM programs employ multifactor authentication, continuous role audits, and real-time response to changes, providing both agility and security at enterprise scale. #IAM #CyberSecurity #IdentityManagement #PAM #ZeroTrust

Agentic Identity and Access Management (IAM) 🤖 CoSAI just published their paper on Agentic Identity and Access Management. The paper starts from a premise I have been discussing for months. Existing IAM was built for humans and static workloads. Agents break both models because they combine delegated human authority with dynamic tool discovery, multi-step execution, and cross-domain delegation chains that no current system was designed to govern. ↳ Agents need their own first-class identities, not shared service accounts or user impersonation. Every agent should be discoverable, attributable, and independently revocable in the identity registry. ↳ Authorization must become task-scoped and context-aware rather than role-based. The paper advocates for On-Behalf-Of delegation using OAuth token exchange with Rich Authorization Requests so tokens carry intent, not just permissions. ↳ Attestation is foundational. Agents should be cryptographically bound to their execution environment through TEE-backed attestation using Intel TDX, AMD SEV-SNP, or ARM TrustZone, so relying parties can verify not just identity but runtime integrity. ↳ The paper introduces a capability and risk matrix that maps agent autonomy levels (L0 through L5) against capability tiers (read-only through cross-domain write) to determine which controls apply. Higher autonomy and higher capability demand ephemeral identities, explicit OBO delegation, and ABAC/PBAC policy enforcement at every hop. ↳ Delegation chains must attenuate at every hop with full traceability back to a human grant. This maps directly to what Karl McGuinness has been writing about in his series on agentic identity, where authority amplifies without attenuation and audit trails lose the thread at every delegation point. ↳ Governance requires immutable logging of every agent action, token exchange, delegation decision, and policy evaluation, with the ability to reconstruct full delegation chains and "prove control on demand." ↳ The paper lays out a three-phase adoption path. Phase 1 is visibility, discovering and registering all agents as identities. Phase 2 is contextual access with short-lived tokens and ABAC. Phase 3 is full agentic IAM with cross-domain delegation chains, continuous evaluation, and automated discovery of new agents. What makes this paper valuable for practitioners is that it extends existing infrastructure rather than replacing it. Identity stores become agent registries. OAuth servers gain delegation-aware flows. RBAC gets augmented with ABAC/PBAC policies that evaluate intent, context, and risk signals. The structural foundations remain, but they need agent-specific semantics layered on top. This is the kind of industry-wide guidance the ecosystem needs right now. Great work by the Coalition for Secure AI!

After 6 weeks of intensive due diligence, the VC passed citing "market timing concerns. Sorry, we are a pass on your deal". A founder recently shared a gut-wrenching experience with me. 🤷🏼♂️Weeks later, the founder discovered something disturbing— Their pitch deck had been accessed by a semi-competitive startup already backed by that same VC. 😟The competitive startup founder had unknowingly left their own email ID visible in DocSend activity logs, giving them proof of who viewed the deck. 😓Three months later, that competing startup launched a product eerily similar, same positioning, same customer insights, same GTM narrative. 🙋♂️When questioned, the VC casually shrugged it off: “We often share market context with our portfolio companies. It’s common practice.” It wasn’t hacked. It wasn’t reverse-engineered. It was gift-wrapped and handed over, by the founder, unknowingly. This isn't a one-off. It’s part of a pattern some VCs follow: Take pitch meetings despite existing conflicts -Ask probing questions under the guise of "due diligence" -Funnel strategic intel to their funded startups -Justify it as "supporting the portfolio" Your pitch becomes their strategy deck. Your insights fuel your competitor’s next sprint. 📝How to Protect Yourself: 1) Remove Sensitive Details in First Round Share high-level overviews in early conversations. Keep customer lists, proprietary strategies, and financials for advanced stages. 2) Check for Conflicts Before You Pitch Review the VC’s portfolio before taking a meeting. If there's a company in a similar space, clarify upfront. 3) Mark Confidential Information Clearly Use disclaimers and confidentiality notes on every page, while not foolproof, they set legal boundaries. 4) Maintain a Digital Paper Trail Record versions, track sends, and maintain email trails to protect your IP in case of future claims. Startups don't just lose deals. Sometimes, they lose their edge, because they trusted too much, too early. Be smart. Be cautious. Not every pitch deserves your full playbook. Keep following for more such Investor-founder horror stories & insights #startups #VCs #funding #Fundraising #Angelinvestors #pitch #pitchdeck #valuation #termsheets #SHAs #investmentready

Most IAM conversations focus on features. But in 2026, the real question is simpler: Do you have a complete identity system - or just disconnected controls? Because modern identity platforms aren’t built on tools alone. They’re built on integrated components that work together continuously. Here’s what defines a strong Identity Management Platform today: 1. Identity Lifecycle Management (The Foundation) Access should follow the user - not the other way around. ↳ Automated provisioning and de-provisioning ↳ Immediate access removal when roles change or users leave ↳ Support for employees, partners, and customers in one system When lifecycle breaks, risk begins. 2. Access Models That Adapt (RBAC + ABAC) Static roles aren’t enough anymore. ↳ RBAC for structure ↳ ABAC for context (location, device, behavior) Access decisions should reflect real-world conditions—not just job titles. 3. Authentication That Thinks (Not Just Verifies) Login is no longer a one-time checkpoint. ↳ Single Sign-On (SSO) for usability ↳ Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for security ↳ Adaptive authentication for real-time risk evaluation Modern IAM doesn’t just authenticate. It continuously evaluates trust. 4. Governance That Proves Control Compliance isn’t about documentation - it’s about evidence. ↳ Continuous access reviews ↳ Policy enforcement aligned with business context ↳ Audit-ready reporting for frameworks like GDPR, ISO, SOC 2 Good governance answers: “Why does this access exist?” 5. Privileged Access Management (Where Risk Concentrates) This is where most breaches begin. ↳ Just-in-time access instead of standing privileges ↳ Session monitoring and approvals ↳ Tight integration with the broader IAM ecosystem If IAM is the control layer, PAM is the risk control center. The shift happening now: IAM is moving from: → Identity storage → Access approvals To: → Continuous identity intelligence → Real-time risk enforcement Final thought A modern identity platform isn’t defined by what it manages. It’s defined by how quickly it can adapt to change, detect risk, and enforce control - without slowing the business down. That’s what separates functional IAM from resilient IAM.

🔘 Difference between IAM & PAM In Azure, Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Privileged Access Management (PAM) are both critical for securing resources, but they address different aspects of identity and access control. Here's a breakdown of their differences: 🔑 IAM (Identity and Access Management) Focuses on managing users, groups, and roles to provide appropriate access to Azure resources. Ensures that the right users have access to the right resources at the right time. 🛡️ PAM (Privileged Access Management) Deals specifically with managing and securing privileged roles and access, which have elevated permissions (e.g., Global Administrator, Owner). Aims to minimize risks associated with excessive or unnecessary high-level access. 1️⃣ Scope ◾ IAM ▫️ Broad in scope: includes all users, devices, groups, and their access levels to resources. ▫️ Applies to regular users, service accounts, and even external identities like partners or guests. ◾ PAM ▫️ Narrower focus: targets users and roles with elevated privileges. ▫️ Ensures administrative accounts are not always active or exposed to minimize potential misuse or breaches. 2️⃣ Key Features ◾ IAM Features: ▫️ Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Assign roles to users/groups to control access to Azure resources (e.g., Reader, Contributor). ▫️ Conditional Access: Enforce access policies based on device, location, or risk level. ▫️ Identity Protection: Detect and remediate identity-based threats (e.g., compromised credentials). ▫️ Integration with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD): Centralized user identity management, Single Sign-On (SSO), and federation. ◾ PAM Features: ▫️ Azure AD Privileged Identity Management (PIM): Manage, monitor, and audit access to privileged roles like Global Administrator or Resource Owner. Temporary and just-in-time (JIT) access to reduce exposure. ▫️ Approval Workflow: Require approvals for activating privileged roles. ▫️ Access Reviews: Periodically review and certify privileged access. ▫️ Audit and Alerts: Track privileged role activations and alert unusual behavior. 3️⃣ Use Cases ◾ IAM Use Cases: ▫️ Granting a user Reader access to a specific resource group. ▫️ Enforcing Conditional Access to require MFA for all users logging in from untrusted networks. ▫️ Assigning external partners Guest access to collaborate on specific projects. ◾ PAM Use Cases: ▫️ Activating Global Administrator privileges only when needed for specific tasks. ▫️ Requiring approval for assigning the Subscription Owner role to a user. ▫️ Enforcing JIT access for a developer needing Contributor permissions for troubleshooting. 4️⃣ Security Goals ◾ IAM ▫️ Ensure every identity has only the minimum access needed to perform their job. ▫️ Protect regular users' credentials and access pathways. ◾ PAM ▫️ Protect administrative access from being exposed or overused. ▫️ Reduce the attack surface by ensuring elevated access is not permanently assigned.