Kathy Gibson is at the Ozone/Keeper Security webinar – Stolen, compromised and weak passwords are the biggest pain points that IT experiences when it comes to employee passwords.
These issues are both cited by 68% of respondents to Keeper Security’s latest report, The State of Security in SMB and Enterprise, conducted at the end of 2020 in conjunction with the Ponemon Institute.
These issues are followed by the time spent resetting passwords (60%), changing passwords when employees leave (46%) and the adoption of best practice (36%).
The study finds the companies don’t have strong password policies in place. Only 48% use unique or strong passwords.
Just 43% of administrators know how many passwords each employee has; and only 23% can determine if passwords are shared.
Since 81% of all breaches are due to weak passwords, these are major concerns, says Roland Steinmetz, channel director: EMEA at Keeper Security.
This year companies are looking at additional login measures: 47% will start using PWM plus another tool; 43% will use authentication apps; 32% will adopt UBA key; 38% will prohibit same password usage; and 29% will define password length.
What companies can do about the threat starts with using enterprise-grade password security with E2E encryption, says Steinmetz.
They should also enforce a consistent layer of multi-factor authentication on all platforms and devices, while using corporate VPNs and related 2FA authentication methods on all platforms.
It is important to educate users regularly on best security practices and how to avoid malicious and socially engineering attacks, he adds.
They should also strive to have a comprehensive view of privileged identities within the IT environment.
Steinmetz says Keeper’s password manager can help IT organisations to prevent password-related data breaches and cyberthreats.
Keeper Security is represented in South Africa by Ozone Information Technology Distribution, which is launching the solution into the local market today.