Published to clients: February 17, 2026 ID: TBW2086
Published to Whisper Club: February 17, 2026
Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
Abstract:
“This Whisper Report investigates how AI and behavioral analytics enhances identity security. It highlights how organizations manage identity scale and emerging threats using behavioral baselines, anomaly detection, and contextual risk scoring. Researched at Identiverse held in Las Vegas, it incorporates quoted insights from Lumos’ Janani Nagarajan, GitGuardian’s Dwayne McDaniel, CyberSolve’s Ankush Kappor, Oasis’ Guy Feinberg, Simeio’s Octabio Lopez, Clarity Security’s James Davidson, Cubeless’ Treb Ryan, Apono’s Ofir Stein, Keeper Security’s Craig Lurey, Imprivata’s Diron Chain, and Panini’s Jim Harris.”
“Recent advancements in decentralized identity include passwordless authentication, time-bound credentials, and dynamic identity chaining. These innovations reduce risk, improve privacy, and enhance user control. Separation of authentication from authorization enables more precise access management. One-way functions protect biometric data in cloud environments. Emerging standards like SPIFFE and CSA’s agentic identity frameworks offer scalable, interoperable solutions. Together, these developments support secure, flexible identity ecosystems without relying on centralized authorities.”
We took the most frequently asked and most urgent technology questions straight to the Technologists gathering at Identiverse 2025 held at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding the latest advancements in decentralized identity and verifiable credentials. But what is a decentralized identity. Panini’s Jim Harris explained, “identity – being able to capture that information using nearfield technology and then verifying that issue issuing information with the agency that issue it to certify that customer is legitimately who they say they are so we believe that’s one of the ways we can support authentication in a digital decentralized environment.” Let’s dive into six advancements in decentralized identity for you to add to your environment as depicted in Figure 1.
Frequently involved in moving authentication from something you know to something you are, Passwordless takes those pesty passwords out of the equation. As Simeio’s Octavio Lopez observed, “I’ve been seeing a lot of a lot of organizations are pushing towards passwordless.” For vendor examples that provide biometric identity options see Conference Whispers: Identiverse 2025 and Conference Whispers: ISC West 2025.
A favorite tactic to limit any damage from stolen credentials is to time bound them. As GitGuardian’s Dwayne McDaniel explained, “How do we not store a long-term credential but instead expose only the bit of the credential you need to verify that entity should be doing that thing and then issue a very short live jot or 509 Cert (X.509 certificate) that will expire immediately.” Any compromised short-lived credential is useless thereby limiting the blast radius in the system.
Related to time bound credentials is the dynamic identity chaining. As Apono’s Ofir Stein revealed the key to decentralization of identities is, “it’s the ability to create dynamic changes in the identity that exist in the environment. Meaning by that we keep what we call identity chaining while if I need access to some resources let’s say in cloud we create all the identities that needed for me to work and then we revoke them so dynamic approach to decentralized identity in a panel the dynamic approach is the decentralized identity when we create identity when needed and we work them when they when they don’t need them.”
“Although commonly associated together, as the namespace identity and access management imply, the decentralized identity world is seeing a separation. Authentication — the verification you are who you say you are — is being distinguished from authorization — the granting of some authority to some resource. As GitGuardian’s Dwayne McDaniel highlighted, “we’re going to see some major advancements with this idea of I can prove on me but that doesn’t automatically authorize me for things the authorization is starting to be separated from authentication in a way that should have probably done in the first place.”
As one might suspect, many identity solutions involve the cloud. The concern becomes, how to store the data in such a way that even if the data stored is compromised – the identity information is not? Keyless’ Alex Jones elaborated on the use case. “when you’re talking about privacy in the biometric space it’s all about where your biometric data goes does it stay on the device does it stay on the cloud so within cloud-based biometrics which is what Keyless does, there’s different ways of making sure that the biometric data on the cloud is kept really safe and this is where a decentralized biometric system come in it’s basically transforming the biometric data when it goes on the cloud so that when it’s there it is completely unrecognizable so even if the cloud server is compromised the biometric data or the data that’s stored there is kept safe.” This is the same approach we saw leveraged during our coverage of ISC West. A hash of the data is stored not the data itself. This hash function can be used against new data presented to see if the two results match properly. There is no reverse of this hash function thus the original data cannot be disclosed even if the resulting hash is compromised.
Finally, when you are creating your roadmap or architecture you do not have to reinvent the wheel. As GitGuardian’s Dwayne McDaniel denoted, “we’re seeing the standards emerge right now about 7 years ago we saw SPIFFE the secure production identity framework for everyone emerge and that came out of what Google was doing internally. Number of working group that sprung up at Netflix and they wrote a beautiful book on it called solving the bottom turtle. The CSA has just put out a new paper May 25th on how dissolve this multi- agent system problem and introducing concepts like agentic name spacing and a distributed ID like as name spaces and it’s just a fascinating time now.”
For those wishing to see a case study about how to bring a massive, decentralized identity solution to life, Identiverse had a keynote for you. Specifically, a case study of the UK mobile identity deployment featuring Hannah Rutter, Deputy Director, Digital Identity of the United Kingdom. If your organization is on the decentralized identity path, there is no reason to go alone. Reduce the risk and increase your chances of success by working with TBW Advisors LLC. Schedule an inquiry at the beginning of the process and each critical step to stop missteps.
Publicly Published with video edition: August 18, 2025
Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli
Photojournalist(s): D. Doreen Galli
Abstract:
Identiverse 2025 welcomed 3,300+ attendees to Mandalay Bay – nearly a 20% gain over 2024. Featuring 250+ sessions and 150 exhibits all on one floor, the event was smooth and accessible. Keynotes and sessions emphasized teamwork, resilience, and collaboration, while exploring AI in identity, decentralized credentials, and zero-trust implementation. Exhibitors showcased innovations from selfie-based authentication to intelligent access control and secrets vault cleanup. The shift from Aria to Mandalay Bay marked a new chapter for the expanding event, which returns to Mandalay Bay in 2026.
The Conference
Identiverse 2025 was held at Mandalay Bay Convention Center, a move from Aria in 2024. It hosted 3300 attendees, 250 sessions and 150 exhibitors.
Cautions
Friendly reminder: this research provides examples of what was shared with us at the event, not an evaluation, validation, or recommendation of the given technology.
TAGS
Identiverse 2025, digital identity, identity security, zero trust, AI in cybersecurity, decentralized identity, verifiable credentials, identity governance, privileged access management, IAM, IGA, cybersecurity conference, Mandalay Bay, authentication, biometrics, secrets management, SSO, MFA, ITDR, access control, enterprise security, digital trust, identity trends, identity innovation, conference highlights, tech expo, identity tech, identity solutions, cybersecurity trends, identity keynote, identity management
After over 53 videos, almost 200 minutes of content only 2 escalator rides, 30,000 steps and over 25 fact checks, our coverage of 2025 Identiverse ends. The event spanned 4 days, had over 250 speakers, 150 exhibits and with over 3300 attendees – 700 more registered over last year. Registration went very smooth with rarely any waiting time. Interestingly, we were informed many registered late. Executives realize that reducing risks and therefore related losses is a viable path to protecting profits in uncertain times. This year’s event took place at Mandalay Bay Convention Center, a change from Aria last year. Most enjoyed the conference taking place all on the same floor. It was great to see the conference grow and expand. Like all changes, there were the old timers yearning for the days when they all packed into too small rooms at Aria. Unfortunately, some of the sessions located physically further from Expo Hall reported some in person attendance challenges from those too tired to walk to the room. The event featured a full collection of meals. We were able to capture the Tuesday Seminar’s Lunch and the lunch on Wednesday in Expo Hall.
While at Identiverse, we conducted research for three additional forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available and will eventually fill in with the video version of the report so you may wish to bookmark these playlists.
Readers and viewers wishing to experience the entire event are encouraged to view the Conference Whispers: Identiverse Playlist in its entirety. Once the video edition is available, the playlist will be sited as a pinned comment on the video edition. It is also easy to locate any previous Conference Whispers playlists through TBW Advisors Website under Subscribers research/Conference Whispers.
Identiverse is absolutely one of those events where regardless of the amazing session you choose, you are aware you are also missing an incredible session – or two. Fear of missing out was rampant. Fortunately, we were able to capture 53 videos for our clients and subscribers. The first Keynote featured John Pritchard, CEO of Radiant Logic. Titled, “Identity isn’t a solo Game” it drove home the message that one cannot succeed in identity without collaboration with the professionals around you throughout the organization and with others in the industry.
Another frequently referred to keynote featured the UK’s Hanna Rutter who is realizing their government digital identity solution. In her talk she spoke about the challenges of such a decentralized digital identity solution and how she is overcoming roadblocks on her path to success. A much in demand topic regarding identity challenges in the realm of AI was presented by Richard Bird. A tech talk held in the expo hall was hosted by Microsoft. Their tech talk covered the hot topic of ITDR, Identity threat detection and response.
Identity is a topic found not only in the expo halls of Identiverse, but was also seen in the halls of HIMSS, Fintech Meetup, Money 20/20 and ISC West just to name a few. What is interesting is the different manners of vendors describe their technology. At ISC West, vendors in the expo hall spoke in terms of a solution. They would always emphasize the PII information is not on the badge, rather a hash of the biometric data which enables verification is provided instead. While this was not clarified on the videos at Identiverse, the vendors later disclosed the same technical approach that was taken on the technology captured at Identiverse. If you are seeking a tap-in to sign-in on a shared device for your organization, Imprivata was in the expo hall with their solution. If you would like to verify the customer requesting the high-risk transaction is the same customer who signed up for the account, Panani shared their technology. Keyless offers a solution to authenticate high risk actions with a selfie. If you are an engineer developing a solution and need the capability to onboard customers, no need to start at square one! PropelAuth provides an out of the box identity capability you can add on to your solution to onboard customers! Seeking to manage your remote teams and seeking a cost effective out of the box solution to provide SSO and MFA? Cubeless shared their free and easy SSO and MFA solution made for you.
Is managing privileges gotten to be too much for you and your organization? Apono Unified Access Management is an intelligent solution that aims to provide just enough just in time privilege for human and non-human-identities (NHI). Oasis goes one step further in managing AI Agents’ Identity, provisioning, deprovisioning and cleaning up stale accounts. Are your coders overwhelmed trying to identity what secrets vault to use so they land up hardcoding the secret? Is your organization suffering from identity vault sprawl? GitGuardian was on hand with their solution that can assist you in identifying and remediating secrets vault sprawl.
Expo hall also featured quite a few IGA (identity governance and administration) and PAM (privileged access management) platforms. Omada captured their 25-years’ IGA experience into a free best practice framework. This framework includes use cases and related configuration recommendations for their platform, Omada Identity Cloud. Lumos shared their agentic AI autonomous IGA solution. This solution can even recommend what privileges a new employee should get based on their role and department. If you have a small but complex environment, Clarity Security has an IGA solution targeted at your organization.
Keeper Security shared their zero-knowledge identity solution for endpoints. Their solution is referred to as zero knowledge as the customer’s data is encrypted on the endpoint with the customers key; meaning, Keeper Security has no access to customer data whatsoever. Bridgesoft shared their complete identity platform that also can adapt and include any components that may already exist in your environment. Specializing at the start of the process, CyberSolve helps organizations commence new identity programs. Looking for IAM services across the portfolio? Simeio was on site there to offer guidance. Clients are reminded to schedule an inquiry to review the current state of your identity program. If you are seeking to expand it or modernize it, we will produce an inquiry plan to guide you along the journey even if you are working with an outsource provider or consultant.
Identiverse will once again be held at Mandalay Bay Convention Center June 15-18, 2026.
*When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.
