Why is Identity and Access Management on Trend?
IT experts have been banging the drum for multifactor authentication and digital password managers for years to combat the risk of credential compromise.
That same risk is also the most common initial cyberattack vector according to year’s IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report, the culprit in 20% of breaches. Identity and access management is enjoying another moment in the spotlight right now as a confluence of factors makes it the perfect solution to take care of a variety of security concerns.
Pandemic-limited movement meant that everyone was opening new online accounts for communication, education, shopping, entertainment and business.
In a global study conducted by Morning Consult for IBM, researchers determined that people created an average of 15 new online accounts per person worldwide during the pandemic.
But a major downside of that account creation blitz is the fact that those users weren’t always careful to create new, strong passwords, opening every account they had up to credential compromise risk.
Obtaining a legitimate password is by far the easiest way for a cybercriminal to get inside a company network to steal data or deploy ransomware.
The sudden proliferation of online accounts spawned by the pandemic also gave cybercriminals even more opportunities to steal passwords as well as raising the likelihood that a password that they snatch is useful. An estimated 20 billion fresh passwords made their way to the dark web in 2020.
A recent report from the non-profit Identity Theft Resource Center showed that the number of data breaches that they’ve recorded in 2021 has already exceeded the total number of events in Full-Year (FY) 2020 by 17%. This trend is expected to continue and it points to the high probability of 2022 being a record-breaking year for data compromises.
It’s a Must-Have for Cyber Resilience
Cybercrime numbers aren’t dropping and businesses are under pressure to do whatever it takes to reduce cyberattack risk. One of the smartest ways to do that is to boost a company’s cyber resilience.
A cyber resilient organization is able to stand in the face of trouble like a cyberattack. Having tight identity security boosts an organization’s cyber resilience by ensuring that only the right people and devices are able to access its network no matter what conditions a company is operating under. This is especially important in a fast-moving risk landscape where it’s hard to predict what’s going to happen next.
Clearly, secure identity and access management needs to be a security priority for every business. But in a time of economic uncertainty, everyone’s looking for something that’s both effective and cost-effective. Pacific IT Support answers that call Contact us today or book a discovery session.