
Show Notes
This episode and the Identity at the Center podcast is supported by CrowdStrike. Learn more at crowdstrike.com.
Jeff Steadman and Jim McDonald sit down with Scott Kriz, GM of Continuous Identity at CrowdStrike, for a deep dive into continuous identity, zero standing access, and the convergence of identity and security. Scott traces his path from co-founding Bitium, to selling it to Google Cloud, to building SGNL and ultimately joining CrowdStrike. The conversation covers how continuous identity works in practice, why traditional PAM and IGA fall short in a real-time world, and what the rise of agentic AI means for identity governance at scale.
Connect with Scott: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottkriz/
Learn more about Crowdstrike: https://www.crowdstrike.com/en-us/platform/next-gen-identity-security/caep/?idac
Connect with us on LinkedIn:
Jim McDonald: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmcdonaldpmp/
Jeff Steadman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffsteadman/
Visit the show on the web at http://idacpodcast.com
00:00:00 Introduction and welcome 00:01:21 How Scott got into identity and co-founded Bitium 00:03:55 Selling to Google Cloud and the inspiration for SGNL 00:05:02 Continuous identity and zero standing access explained 00:09:13 Defining continuous identity at CrowdStrike 00:10:20 How continuous identity differs from PAM and IGA 00:15:06 Data as the foundation for continuous identity 00:19:29 Open ecosystems, Shared Signals Framework, and CAEP 00:25:26 Agents, identity chaining, SPIFFE, SPIRE, and MCP gateways 00:33:02 Identity inside CrowdStrike's broader security strategy 00:37:27 Identity security budgets and ROI-driven purchasing 00:40:04 Agentic scale and the need for automated identity controls 00:43:39 The SGNL acquisition: what it means for both companies 00:50:25 Zero trust as a real architectural framework 00:54:00 Helicopter skiing, avalanches, and staying present
Keywords: IDAC, Identity at the Center, Jeff Steadman, Jim McDonald, Scott Kriz, CrowdStrike, SGNL, continuous identity, zero standing access, PAM, IGA, zero trust, agentic AI, non-human identity, NHI, SPIFFE, SPIRE, MCP, identity security, real-time authorization, cybersecurity
More from Identity at the Center
Most cloud security incidents trace back to the customer, and most of those trace back to identity. Jeff and Jim sit down with Mike Small, Senior Analyst at KuppingerCole, to unpack Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) and why identity practitioners should care. Mike explains how identity controls in the cloud have become data defined in code, why ephemeral workloads break traditional scan-then-deploy security, and how CNAPP evolved from static configuration analysis into runtime monitoring and SOC integration. The conversation covers the shared responsibility model, SOC 2 attestations and complementary user entity controls, multi-cloud complexity, and why standards matter for portability and sovereignty. Mike also looks at CNAPP as a security plane for AI, agents as another layer of non-human identity, recent market consolidation, and the cloud as national critical infrastructure. Plus, a detour into amateur radio, Morse code exams, and low-power QRP contacts across the Atlantic.
Bojan Simic, co-founder and CEO of HYPR, returns to Identity at the Center for a Sponsor Spotlight conversation with Jim McDonald. Bojan traces HYPR's path from passwordless authentication to a broader set of identity assurance controls and explains how assurance differs from verification across the full employee lifecycle. He describes what organizations find when they look for worker impersonators, from remote employees outsourcing their jobs to North Korean operatives, and why verification has to continue past day one. The conversation then turns to AI agents: why IAM teams are becoming the HR of AI, how agent identity differs from human identity, why humans can't manually govern agents at scale, and why securing MCP alone misses the full context of an agent's session. Bojan also covers what is slowing passwordless adoption, adaptive risk, alert fatigue, and how identity teams and the SOC can work together. This episode was made possible with support from HYPR.
Eve Maler, founder of Venn Factory and author of Mastering Digital Identity, joins Jim McDonald and Jeff Steadman for her tenth appearance on Identity at the Center. Eve shares what she has learned since the book came out, from writing for non-technical executives (and keeping AI out of the manuscript) to the strange places identity ends up on the org chart. The conversation covers treating identity as a product, why identity can be a business model in disguise, how CISOs can influence CIAM when they are not the boss of it, and the identity debt that AI is now calling due. Eve also explains why intent looks more like purpose of use than finer-grained authorization, how contract language can help frame agent mandates, what trust means to humans versus security teams, and the early work on UMA for Agents (U4A) to govern third-party agents through a resource-centric, protect surface mindset. The episode wraps with travel tips from all three frequent flyers.
Shea McGrew, Chief Technology Officer at Maricopa County, returns to Identity at the Center one year after episode 376 to take on a question she first raised at our Identity After Dark session: when does digital identity become critical infrastructure? Jeff and Jim talk with Shea about how a county broadband and digital equity project led her to see digital trust as the thread running through every digital government service, and why that trust depends on identity. The conversation covers building an external identity portal for residents, designing for consent and privacy from the start, why residents extend trust to private platforms more readily than to government, the right to be forgotten, data governance across departments, and where decentralized identity and verifiable credentials might fit. Shea also shares her view on access reviews as a learning journey, what it would take to trust AI agents with certifications, and whether an agent could ever be considered a citizen. Plus, potatoes and the proper way to cut a sandwich.
Alex Bovee, CEO and co-founder of C1.ai (formerly ConductorOne), returns for his third appearance on Identity at the Center. Alex walks Jim and Jeff through the rebrand to C1.ai and why the .ai matters: identity now covers humans, workloads, and agents. The conversation opens on launch week and the new App Hub, built around a question many CIOs and CISOs are facing. What happens when everyone in the company becomes a builder and vibe-coded apps start running critical workflows?