A new survey conducted by identity management vendor Hitachi ID discovered that nearly 46% of IT and security enterprises store corporate passwords in office documents like spreadsheets making them vulnerable to a significant cyber threat. Hitachi ID surveyed 100 executives across EMEA and North America to recognize better how secure their password management is.
It indicates that IT leaders aren’t practicing what they preach because almost all (94%) participants asserted they need password monitoring training, with 63% claiming they do so more than once a year.
“It raises an important question about how effective password management training is when nearly half the organizations are still storing passwords in spreadsheets and other documents, and 8% write them on sticky notes,” stated Nick Brown, CEO at Hitachi ID. Insecure passwords are still a leading cause of cyberattacks, and education alone is clearly not enough. More companies need to follow the lead of the 30% who report that they store passwords in a company-provided password manager.”
The worrying thing is that many enterprises know their secrets and password management isn’t up to par. Question marks were also raised about the risks posed by departing employees. Only 5% say they were extremely confident that wasn’t possible. If they have to urgently terminate an employee, only 7% of enterprises were confident they can transfer passwords and credentials, terminate access, and maintain business continuity.
That lack of confidence has real-world implications. Some 29% of respondents say they’ve experienced an incident in the past year where they lost access to product systems after an employee left the organization. Last year, it emerged that a former employee at a credit union destroyed 21GB of corporate data, including 20,000 files and almost 3500 directories in retaliation for being fired.
According to Ian Reay, VP, Product Management at Hitachi ID, it is estimated that each employee might have as many as 70-100 passwords and “decentralized secrets” that could be exploited by attackers to gain access to and move through an organization.
“In the midst of the Great Resignation, every organization should be extremely confident that passwords will stay in the company regardless of which employees come and go,” Reay concluded.
