Survey: More multi-factor authentication, increased cybersecurity spending
15 December, 2015
category: Biometrics, Corporate, Digital ID, Financial
With close to two-thirds of responding companies having suffered a data breach in the past 12 months, 95% reported they would increase cybersecurity spending in the next year. Enterprises are also ramping up authentication procedures with 66% moving beyond user names and password for authentication. These are results of a survey of 300 IT professional conducted by Wakefield Research sponsored by SecureAuth Corp.
Of those companies increasing cybersecurity spending, 44% will do so by 20% or more. Some of that increased spending will go towards identity management and authentication. Some of the breaches in the past year have shown that user names and passwords aren’t good enough for authentication. This assessment is backed up by the survey results, with approximately 66% of respondents leveraging authentication methods beyond passwords.
User experience can go a long way for companies choosing a new security solution. Eighty-seven percent of responding executives say that user experience frequently plays a role in the security solution picked.
Respondents say that passwords are on their way out as well, 91% of cybersecurity professionals agree that the traditional password will not exist in ten years. On top of that, password recall can waste company resources. The survey results noted 85% of cybersecurity professionals believe employees frequently contact the help desk because they’ve forgotten passwords – with more than 37% saying their employees do this all the time.
But the move to new authentication technologies isn’t easy and there is still some confusion in the market. Some 81% of cybersecurity professionals think new authentication methods are prohibitive because they require the latest technology and most up-to-date software.
At the same time, 97% of respondents also say new authentication techniques are reliable — such as fingerprint scans or two-factor authentication. In juxtaposing these findings it’ seems that vendors must continue to improve on multi-factor authentication technology.