WinMagic exposes the "Wrong Identity Tax," where organizations invest heavily in identity security that still fails to protect online access. The company introduces an endpoint-driven approach that removes reliance on login events and closes the gaps attacker's exploit.

TORONTO, April 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- WinMagic exposes a growing contradiction at the center of cybersecurity: organizations are spending billions on identity security, yet identity remains the primary attack vector. As breach costs continue to climb, particularly in the United States where the average incident now reaches $10.22 million, more than double the global average of $4.44 million, the gap between investment and outcome is widening.

WinMagic, a cybersecurity innovator known for endpoint-based authentication and encryption, is calling this gap the "Wrong Identity Tax," the cumulative cost organizations pay to secure credentials, tokens, and sessions instead of the real identity.

"Organizations are not paying for stronger security. They are paying a recurring penalty for securing the wrong identity," said Thi Nguyen-Huu, founder and Chief Executive Officer of WinMagic. "A cost of doing business implies you are paying for the right thing. Organizations are not. They are securing a password, a bearer token, or a session cookie instead of the real identity. Real identity is a live equation, actor, platform, and conditions, bound together at the source. The industry never built for that."

Identity Security Is Failing at Login and After Login

The cybersecurity industry has spent decades improving authentication, from passwords to multi-factor authentication and now passkeys. These technologies have strengthened login security, but they still rely on the same assumption: that verifying a user at a single moment is sufficient.

WinMagic argues that this assumption is fundamentally flawed.

Even modern approaches such as passkeys, which use strong public key cryptography, still verify the wrong identity. They produce a one-time assertion about a user, not a continuous proof of a real identity bound to a device and conditions. As a result, identity security fails at both stages.

At login, systems verify a credential instead of a complete identity. After login, they rely on tokens and sessions that persist without continuous validation. Attackers exploit both weaknesses.

The flaw is structural. The industry verifies one identity and delivers access to another. It verifies the user, then delivers access to the endpoint. That misalignment creates the vulnerability attackers exploit.

In the United States, the financial impact is especially severe. The average data breach now costs $10.22 million, the highest globally. Stolen or compromised credentials remain one of the most common entry points, accounting for 10 percent of breaches and taking up to 186 days to detect.

The downstream consequences extend beyond enterprises. Identity-related breaches have contributed to $20.9 billion in identity theft losses in the United States, turning technical vulnerabilities into widespread financial harm.

"Passkeys improve how we log in, but they do not fix what identity actually is," Nguyen-Huu said. "The problem is not just what happens after login. The problem starts at login itself. If you verify the wrong identity at the beginning, everything that follows is built on that mistake."

The Wrong Identity Tax: One Problem, Solved Twice, and Still Not Solved

WinMagic defines the Wrong Identity Tax as the cost of compensating for an incorrect definition of identity. Instead of verifying a complete identity, systems verify fragments such as passwords, biometrics, or tokens. The industry then builds additional layers to compensate for the gaps this creates.

Authentication systems attempt to secure login. Session security tools attempt to secure what follows. But these are not two separate problems. Both perform the same function, verifying identity before granting access. The industry treated them as different and built two markets around the same flaw.

This has created a cost stack that organizations must maintain, including identity and access management tools, session monitoring, integration overhead, helpdesk burden, and breach response. Each layer addresses part of the same problem, yet none solve it at the root.

The identity security market is projected to exceed $30 billion annually, and much of that spending exists to compensate for a single architectural error. The internet verifies servers, but it does not verify the client. As a result, organizations continue to invest in layers of controls that attempt to approximate identity instead of establishing it at the source.

"The industry split one problem into two markets, login and session security, and poured budget into both," Nguyen-Huu explained. "That is the Wrong Identity Tax. We are paying twice to approximate something that should be solved once. Identity is not a checkpoint. It is a continuous condition."

At its core, the issue is architectural. Without verification at the source, identity remains probabilistic. Systems are guessing using tokens, cookies, and behavioral signals instead of establishing certainty.

Eliminating the Wrong Identity Tax by Verifying Identity at the Source

WinMagic addresses this challenge by redefining identity as a continuous, cryptographic signal anchored at the endpoint.

With MagicEndpoint and Live Key, identity is established at the source and maintained throughout the entire interaction. Trust is not granted once. It exists only while conditions are met, including user presence, device integrity, and policy compliance. If those conditions break, access is revoked automatically.

Key capabilities include:

• Continuous identity verification: Trust is maintained from power-on to power-off, eliminating reliance on one-time authentication events
• Correct identity definition: Identity combines user, device, and conditions rather than isolated credentials
• Elimination of session vulnerability: Access persists only while trust remains valid
• Reduced complexity and cost: Organizations can reduce reliance on layered identity tools and compensating controls

This model leverages technologies already widely deployed, including Trusted Platform Modules and TLS, rather than adding new layers on top of existing complexity. It establishes a deterministic identity signal at the source that does not depend on repeated user interaction or network-based verification.

"The industry has spent decades layering controls and pouring budget into layers of cure to compensate for a definition error," Nguyen-Huu said. "When identity is established at the source and maintained continuously, security becomes simpler, stronger, and aligned with how the internet actually works."

About WinMagic

WinMagic's mission is to secure the digital world through high standards and strong ethics. For more than two decades, the organization has led innovation in encryption and endpoint security. Today, WinMagic is advancing a new paradigm for online access—anchoring the endpoint as the foundation of trust. By letting endpoints speak for users, WinMagic turns cumbersome logins into seamless, automated exchanges. What was once user-to-machine communication now becomes a machine-to-machine relationship, governed by policy and anchored in cryptography. This evolution eliminates friction, reduces risk, and lays the groundwork for the Secure Internet—where security is continuous, effortless, and requires no user action. Learn more at https://winmagic.com.

References:

• IBM. (2025). Cost of a data breach report 2025. ibm.com/reports/data-breach
• Nguyen-Huu, T. (2026). The end of the identity tax. WinMagic.
• Greenberg, A. (2026). Data broker breaches fueled nearly $21 billion in identity theft losses. WIRED. wired.com/story/data-broker-breaches-fueled-dollar209-billion-in-identity-theft-losses

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SOURCE WinMagic