The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of our RSA 2019 Survey
RSA 2019 is now behind us. Our Idaptive team participated in full force, showcasing hands-on demos of our Next-Gen Access Cloud, talking about the importance of a zero-trust approach to cybersecurity, and giving away some awesome goodies, including a Nintendo Switch.
We also surveyed several hundred attendees at the event around the current state of identity and access management at their respective companies. There were some interesting findings, and not all were good, but they demonstrated a lot of promise for the future of cybersecurity at organizations across the globe.
Here’s the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of our RSA survey on identity and access management.
The Good
The good news is that over half of organizations plan to adopt cloud-based Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) this year (51%). That’s a huge step in the right direction, especially since 81% of breaches involve compromised credentials (aka weak and stolen passwords).
Previously, I had shared that the majority of business leaders (wrongly) believe that bolstering security vulnerabilities should be their top cybersecurity priority. But with 10 times the number of breaches actually coming from identity tactics rather than from vulnerabilities, it’s good to see that companies are starting to pay more attention to identity measures like MFA.
The Bad
On the inverse, unfortunately, less than half of organizations already have widespread use of MFA (41%). Think about it, you secure your banking, insurance, investments, Gmail, Amazon (and heck, even your Twitch) account with two-factor identification — so why on earth wouldn’t your business services and apps be equally secure?The Ugly
Sixty-six percent of survey respondents say they’d rather talk like Yoda than breathe like Darth Vader (yes, we actually asked this). Guess they just don’t know the power of the dark side (which also may explain the lack of MFA).
I’ve attended this event for many years now, and it’s always incredible to see the best cybersecurity has to offer come together to share their insights and technologies that keep us safe online.
This year’s conference was no different. From new technologies for blockchain and leveraging artificial intelligence, to the big tech companies’ thoughts on privacy, to even an appearance from the legendary Tina Fey on International Women’s Day — the event was jam-packed with great stuff.
While MFA adoption definitely isn’t as high as we’d hope, it’s promising to see that so many companies are looking to adopt cloud-based MFA this year. Idaptive’s “MFA Everywhere” approach allows companies to make MFA an integral component of their identity management strategy, building a security perimeter that enforces access and utilizes a wide array of authentication factors to drive adoption. This is crucial today to enable secure use of hybrid clouds, SaaS apps, and mobile business apps.
You don’t leave the fate of your bank account and credit cards up to chance, so don’t do the same when it comes to your business. Visit www.idaptive.com to learn more, and see everyone at the next event!
Corey Williams
Corey Williams is the Vice President of Marketing & Strategy and lead evangelist for Idaptive, leading all marketing functions, as well as market development and strategy. Corey served as the Senior Director of Products and Marketing for more than a decade at Centrify where he was the visionary behind, and the first product manager of, the set of products that were ultimately spun out of Centrify to become Idaptive, including leading SaaS services for Single Sign-on (SSO), Adaptive Multi-factor Authentication (MFA), endpoint and mobile context, and User Behavior and Risk Analytics (UBA).
While at Centrify, Corey defined and brought to market seven net-new product offerings directly contributing to the growth of the existing customer base from less than 400 customers to over 5000 customers. He also led efforts with major industry analysts that directly resulted in Centrify being named as a leader in all of the major analyst reports including the Gartner Magic Quadrant and Critical Capabilities reports for Access Management, Worldwide; Forrester IDaaS Wave; KuppingerCole Cloud MFA Leadership Compass; and Network World Clear Choice Winner for Single Sign-on Solutions.
Corey is a frequent speaker and commentator on IT Security and IT Management. He has authored several publications, including “Zero Trust Security for Dummies”, a leading guide for enterprise managers.
Prior to Centrify, Corey led products and marketing for SpikeSource (acquired by Black Duck Software), Syndera (acquired by Tibco), and Journee Software (acquired by Initiate Systems). Earlier in his career, he managed pre- and post-sales consulting for Active Software (acquired by webMethods).
Corey holds degrees in Mathematics (BS) and Computer Science (BS) from New Mexico State University, as well as an MS in Engineering and an MBA from San Jose State University.
CHAMELEON-LIKE SUPERPOWER
If Corey could have any chameleon-like superpower, it would be the chameleon's tongue, which is ridiculously fast. Some of the world's smallest chameleons have the world's fastest tongues. In automotive terms, the tongue could go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in a hundredth of a second! “I would be able to complete webinars in 4.5 seconds instead of 45 minutes!”