90% of IT professionals are concerned about employees using their personal credentials for work purposes
Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, released the findings of its Authentication and Identity Management Index, which revealed that 90% of enterprise IT professionals are concerned that employee reuse of personal credentials for work purposes could compromise security. However, with two thirds (68%) saying they would be comfortable allowing employees to use their social media credentials on company resources, Gemalto’s research suggests that personal applications (such as email) are the biggest worry to organizations.
Convergence of Personal and Workplace Identities
The enterprise and consumer worlds are merging closer together, with enterprise security teams under increasing pressure to implement the same type of authentication methods typically seen in consumer services, such as fingerprint scanning and iris recognition. Six in ten (62%) believed this was the case, with a similar amount (63%) revealing they feel security methods designed for consumers provide sufficient protection for enterprises. In fact, over half of respondents (52%) believe it will be just three years before these methods merge completely.
Identity theft accounts for 64% of all data breaches across the globe[1], and consumer service breaches continue to rise, resulting in almost nine in ten (89%) enterprises addressing their access management security policies. Half of enterprises have implemented extra training (49%) to allay their security concerns, 47% increased security spend, and 44% allocated further resources.
Employee expectations around usability and mobility are affecting how enterprises approach authentication and access management. Nearly half of respondents stated that they are increasing resources and spending on access management. Deployment rates are also increasing: 62% expect to implement strong authentication in two years’ time – up from 51% of respondents who said the same thing last year, and nearly 40% responded they will implement Cloud SSO or IDaaS within the next two years.
Enterprises are clearly seeing the benefits, with over nine in ten (94%) using two-factor authentication to protect at least one application and nearly all respondents (96%) expecting to use it at some point in the future.
François Lasnier, Senior Vice President, Identity Protection at Gemalto said, “From credential sharing to authentication practices, it’s clear that consumer trends are having a big impact on enterprise security. But businesses need to make sure their data isn’t compromised by bad personal habits. It’s encouraging to see deployment of two-factor authentication methods on the rise, and increased awareness for cloud access management, as these are the most effective solutions for businesses to secure cloud resources and protect against internal and external threats. For IT leaders, it’s important that they keep pushing for security to be a priority at the board level, and ensure that it’s front of mind for everyone in an organization.”
