Nine in 10 businesses fear employee passwords will compromise their networks

Some 90% of IT business professionals think employees put their networks at risk by reusing personal passwords for work, a new study shows.

As the consumer and enterprise environments merge, companies are implementing consumer-type authentication for their services. 63% feel security methods designed for consumers offer enough protection for enterprises.

One the other hand, identity theft is behind 64% of all data breaches across the globe and, as a result, 89% of enterprises have reviewed their access management security policies. Nearly half of respondents said they are increasing spending on access management and 62% expect to implement strong authentication in two years.

“What”s clear is businesses feel their customers are not impressed with the authentication methods they”re using,” said Jason Hart, CTO at Gemalto. “This isn”t a surprise given focus is still on boosting perimeter defences and there remains a lack of investment in solutions like two-factor authentication and encryption, which aim to protect the most valuable thing, the data.

When it comes to mobility and its consequences, half of businesses admit security is a chief concern. 35% completely restricted employees from accessing company resources via mobile devices and 91% partially restrict access to resources.