Avocado Consulting has announced an expanded partnership with identity security leader, CyberArk, across Australia and New Zealand. The move is intended to secure enterprise secrets - credentials stored in application code and across the software supply chain, for organisations undergoing rapid digital transformation. This announcement places Avocado as the first fully certified ANZ-based partner for CyberArk's Secrets Management, a part of the CyberArk Identity Security Platform.
Tony Rabottini, General Manager Cyber Security at Avocado, expressed the importance of this achievement in expanding the company's software engineering and cyber risk mitigation capabilities. He highlighted that this would play a vital role in protecting and managing their clients' most valuable assets as they continue to digitise and adopt cloud technology, resulting in a growing volume of human and non-human identities.
"The acceleration of cloud adoption means that more organisations are turning to cloud-based solutions such as microservices, containerisation and serverless technologies," Rabottini said. "This trend is creating an explosion of digital identities, including emerging identity types that are not traditionally captured. With non-human identities outnumbering human ones by a ratio of 45 to one, cybersecurity risk isn't properly addressed until these non-human or machine identities are secured."
Dr. Stephenie Andal, Partner Manager ANZ at CyberArk, confirmed the excitement of collaborating with Avocado as their first fully-certified ANZ-based Secrets Management partner. She warned of the increasing incidences of serious data breaches compromising non-human identity access and encouraged organisations to prioritise adjusting their IT landscapes to address both security and speed.
Dr. Andal noted that improper practices in DevOps, such as vault sprawl, poor rotation and secrets in code, often contribute to major cybersecurity incidents. CyberArk found that a shocking 70% of organisations store above 50 secrets within their Git repositories. Mismanaging these creates unprecedented risk that can become a ticking time bomb for companies, she added.
CyberArk's robust solution offers a centralised secrets management platform configured to suit the unique infrastructure requirements of cloud native, container, and DevOps environments. It works to secure, rotate, audit and manage secrets and other credentials used by dynamic applications, automation scripts and other non-human identities.
"We envisage CyberArk Secrets Management becoming a vital part of both security and development teams' processes for complex organisations undergoing rapid digital transformation," Dr. Andal said. "Avocado's application expertise in designing adaptive policies and tools for expanding enterprises, along with their aptitude for leading risk discussions at board level, will be instrumental in effectively future-proofing organisations against these challenges."