Readiness Report | October 2026
The Identity Recovery Gap: Why Restoring Access Isn’t Restoring Trust
Most identity strategies focus on preventing unauthorized access – not recovering identity systems after compromise. If identity can’t be restored to a trusted state, neither can the business.
The Reality: Identity Availability Isn’t Identity Recoverability
Most organizations aren’t prepared to recover identity systems quickly or to bring identity services back online smoothly. Far fewer can prove the identity they’ve restored is actually trustworthy.
The Identity Recovery Gap reframes identity from a security control into critical recovery infrastructure – and lays out what CIOs and CISOs should require to close it.
Key Insights
The Stakes
Identity has become the primary attack surface and attack vector in the enterprise. Frontier AI is compounding the problem – adversaries can now begin lateral movement within as little as four minutes of the initial compromise of an account or identity. Detection and containment windows that once measured in hours now measure in minutes.
What Makes This Threat Different
This report reframes identity from a security control into critical recovery infrastructure. It moves past the question most identity programs answer – can we stop the attack? – to the one that actually determines business survival: Can we quickly restore trusted identity after an attack succeeds?
You’ll learn the five pillars organizations need to address to close the identity recovery gap, and what’s required of your identity resilience strategy along the way.
Why It Matters
The gap between “identity is back online” and “identity is trustworthy” is a critical space most businesses struggle to close after an attack. This Readiness Report gives CIOs and CISOs a framework for addressing it – before an incident forces the conversation.
79%
of cyberattacks started with compromised identity.1
24.7%
of organizations have documented and tested their Active Directory and Entra ID recovery capabilities.2
1. The State of Ransomware Report 2026, Sophos
2. Resilience Operations: The Discipline That Makes Readiness Provable, IDC — sponsored by Commvault
The Five Pillars of Identity Resilience
Assessment
Protection
Detection
Readiness
Recovery
ASSESSMENT
Understand Where You Stand
Before you invest in solutions, assess your current identity resilience capabilities with the Commvault Identity Resilience Assessment – and see where your organization has gaps across all five pillars.
STRIVE Podcast
Non-Human Machine Identities: The Governance Gap
Commvault Field CTOs Vidya Shankaran and Dan Conrad break down the governance gap in machine identities – and explain why non-human identities (they outnumber humans 144:1!) have become a critical cybersecurity risk.
Related Resources
The Identity Resilience Health Check
A self-guided check against the six requirements every identity resilience strategy needs.
Get Real About Identity Resilience
The business case and threat landscape behind this report – learn why identity has become the primary attack surface, and what building real resilience requires.
Join the Readiverse CXO Exchange
Join an exclusive community of CxOs building cyber resilience strategies that anticipate threats and accelerate readiness.