IRVINE, Calif. – April 13, 2016 – SecureAuth Corporation, the leader in adaptive access control, announced today the release of survey results on enterprise priorities within the growing identity and access management (IAM) market. Executed in tandem with global research and analytical consulting firm Decision Analyst, the responses surveyed more than 230 IT security professionals in the U.S. and U.K. The survey data indicates that organizations are prioritizing security over cost savings and increasing investment in IAM solutions.
Priorities for IAM Solutions
With traditional perimeter protection methods failing under the pressure of advanced attacks, IT organizations are being forced to rethink their security strategies. However when cybercriminals breach an organization’s perimeter, they need one critical thing to successfully complete their mission: credentials. Protecting them – which nowadays generally includes employee, customer and partner credentials as opposed to just employee credentials – is essential in the fight against cyberattacks. In fact, a whopping 78 percent of the Decision Analyst survey respondents cited protection and security as key IAM priorities, outweighing user experience and cost-related aspects.
“It’s no secret that security has become a board room-level imperative,” said Craig Lund, CEO of SecureAuth. “A decade ago, it was a nice to have; today, it’s a must have. Accordingly, organizations across the globe are abandoning their laissez-faire approaches to cybersecurity and significantly increasing security spending for the coming years. Worthwhile cybersecurity endeavors may require some redirection of budget, but in this day and age, proactivity is just as important as reactivity.”
Drivers for New Project Initiation
When asked why their company has initiated new identity projects in the past, 55 percent of respondents across small, medium and large companies reported the deployment of new applications – including both on-premises and cloud-based applications – as the top driver. Board and/or senior management’s drive for increased security was also cited by 50 percent of respondents as a chief reason for new identity project initiation, underscoring that cybersecurity has indeed become a board-level concern. Other top drivers for new project initiation of IAM solutions include:
• Compliance/audit requirements – 49 percent
• Cost savings compared to a previous solution – 44 percent
• Heard of a security breach at another company – 36 percent
• Increase in prevalence of stolen or misused credentials – 34 percent
• Company had a security breach – 25 percent
• Other – 3 percent
IAM Investment Plans
The vast majority (79 percent) of respondents indicated that plans are underway for IAM of externally focused applications, including vendor, partner and customer applications, portals and mobile apps. A detailed breakdown of respondents’ plans for investment for externally focused applications is as follows:
• 47 percent indicated that IAM investment is a currently funded priority
• 32 percent will invest in IAM in the next year
• 13 percent will invest in IAM, but do not have a specific timeframe
• 8 percent have no plans to invest in IAM
“As cybercrime grows increasingly more sophisticated, companies must ramp up their efforts to improve their cybersecurity posture,” said Jeff Kukowski, COO of SecureAuth. “Today’s perimeter isn’t what it used to be, expanding to include the cloud and other networks managed by partners and service providers. This evolving perimeter has forced teams to revamp their approach to focus on building tougher access and authentication barriers around data, applications and internal resources. Our survey findings with Decision Analyst demonstrate that organizations are realizing this hard truth and expanding their definition of perimeter to include identity.”
Survey Methodology
The SecureAuth online survey was conducted by Decision Analyst among 239 U.S. and U.K. decision makers for identity and access management for their companies, between December 16, 2015 and January 11, 2016. Participants had to work for a company with at least 500 employees. After screening, participants completed a 15-minute survey addressing the project objectives. The survey included both closed-end and qualitative (open-ended) questions.
About SecureAuth
SecureAuth is the leader in adaptive access control solutions, empowering organizations to determine identities with confidence. SecureAuth™ IdP provides authentication security, Single Sign-On and user self-service tools together in a single platform, allowing strong identity security while minimizing disruptions to the end-user. SecureAuth IdP is currently protecting over 5 million users worldwide. For the latest insights on adaptive access control, follow the SecureAuth blog, follow @SecureAuth on Twitter, or visit www.secureauth.com.
SecureAuth™ IdP is a trademark of SecureAuth Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.countries.