Aligning your state identity program goals to key NASCIO 2025 priorities

NASCIO, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, recently released their top priorities for 2025. This list is compiled from a survey of the NASCIO membership about the top issues their organizations face.

State agencies on a digital modernization path are realizing that the core of enterprise security is identity. SailPoint continues to provide value and align with key NASCIO priorities; keep reading for a closer look.

Cybersecurity and risk management

For the twelfth consecutive year, cybersecurity and risk management is named the top priority on the NASCIO list. When leveraged together, cybersecurity and risk management provide more context for the threats they are seeking out and addressing and, further, a new lens to use when identifying and isolating cyber threats. Modifying and revoking access throughout the identity lifecycle is a core principle to zero trust. This can decrease the possibility of unauthorized access and inadvertent access creep. Blind spots of overprovisioned access to employees, partners, and machines can leave costly security gaps if not properly managed.

SailPoint Identity Security Cloud helps organizations to manage and secure real-time access to critical data and applications for every enterprise identity with an intelligent and unified approach.

Artificial Intelligence and Robotic Process Automation

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are growing rapidly in the public sector. However, ungoverned non-human identities can open a door to security gaps and operational risk. Non-human identities are often left active as orphaned accounts, expanding the attack surface.

SailPoint’s AI-driven solutions can help improve productivity, minimize risk, and reduce operational costs. SailPoint Machine Identity Security provides a single platform for managing the entire lifecycle of RPA machine identities. From the moment a machine account is created to the point when it’s no longer needed, Machine Identity Security ensures that each configured machine identity is governed according to your organization’s security and compliance policies.

Data management and analytics

Data stored, consumed, and accessed by government operations can be critical to mission delivery but can also be sensitive requiring proper identity security. State employees, automated systems, and third-party partners require appropriate access to this data to effectively serve constituents and achieve agency objectives. This requires robust data governance frameworks that address access control, data security, and regulatory compliance.

SailPoint Data Access Security, built on the SailPoint Atlas platform, helps agencies discover, govern, and secure sensitive data. Security teams can uncover hidden risks, streamline security efforts, and holistically improve identity and data security posture from day one.

Identity and access management

When today’s attackers can simply steal credentials and log in, identity security becomes organizations’ best opportunity to reduce their attack surface. An identity is the single thread that, once pulled, can unravel the security of your government organization instantly. This is why state agencies need proper access controls in place to protect against such an event. Agencies must mitigate and reduce risk more effectively, and often, the root cause of this risk is overprovisioned access to identities.

Identity Security Cloud helps limit access to critical data and applications, ensuring a user can only access what they need to do their job, and nothing more. Identity Security Cloud’s automation capabilities can help prevent overprovisioning and spot risky users and access outliers, including non-employees and machine identities. This also simplifies deprovisioning access, helping remove permissions when someone changes departments or leaves the agency entirely. Likewise, automating access can accelerate onboarding, helping to improve employee productivity while mitigating the risk of backdoor access by former workers and third-party non-employees.

Cloud services

Cloud technology empowers state governments to adapt to constituents’ needs and increase resiliency. Cloud-based identity solutions are purpose-built to secure that access, keep data private, and drive the change and innovation needed to keep pace with agency modernization needs.

To accelerate a secure cloud transformation, SailPoint Identity Security Cloud’s cloud-based multi-tenant SaaS-based identity security solutions facilitate organizational transformation by enabling system access without the need for in-house expertise or additional capital spend.

As government entities migrate to cloud services, it becomes increasingly challenging to control access within an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) environment. SailPoint Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management helps extend identity security and governance to cloud infrastructure. Enterprises can govern IaaS access directly from SailPoint’s core identity security solution in the same way they manage access to other enterprise applications and data.

Learn more about how to modernize your agency’s identity security program: Reduce cyber risk: Modernizing identity security for state and local agencies.

DISCLAIMER: THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS ARTICLE IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND NOTHING CONVEYED IN THIS ARTICLE IS INTENDED TO CONSTITUTE ANY FORM OF LEGAL ADVICE. SAILPOINT CANNOT GIVE SUCH ADVICE AND RECOMMENDS THAT YOU CONTACT LEGAL COUNSEL REGARDING APPLICABLE LEGAL ISSUES.