Companies Still Suffering From Poor Credential Hygiene: New Report

A new report, the 2018 Privileged Access Threat Report from Bomgar, contains cause for worry for those who care about IT security since its numbers carry the clear message that, when it comes to keeping up with identities, most companies are getting it wrong.

According to the survey of more than 1,000 IT professionals with ties to system access, half of companies polled say that they either have had a serious breach or expect one within the next six months. Of those giving a positive response to the breach question, roughly two-thirds pin the blame on mis-used credentials.

Blame for this credential abuse falls on two large points: employee mis-use, and mis-use by trusted third parties. Third parties come in for most of the scrutiny, but it's clear that employees are far from off the hook.

Poor password hygiene, from writing down passwords (mentioned by 65% of organizations) to telling co-workers your password (54% of organizations) continues to vex companies.

As for the third parties, the credential problem seems to point to a larger company culture issue: 73% of those responding say that their companies are too reliant on third parties for critical work, while 72% say that they are simply too trusting of their third party vendors.

For more, read here.

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