Over half of the companies are affected by the theft of privileged access data and insider threats. ThycoticCentrify study: 77 percent use the zero trust approach in response to increased attacks on critical systems and data.
Over half of companies struggled with privileged login theft (53 percent) and insider threats (52 percent) in the past twelve months. This is shown by a new study by ThycoticCentrify, a leading provider of cloud identity security solutions. In 85 percent of the cases in which cybercriminals stole privileged credentials, they were able to access critical systems and / or data. In addition, 66 percent of insider threats resulted in the abuse of administrator privileges to illegally access critical systems and / or data.
Dangerous insider threats
The study commissioned by ThycoticCentrify in collaboration with CensusWide surveyed 2021 IT decision-makers in the USA in May 150 about the most common risks associated with privileged access and trends in the introduction of Zero Trust. In addition to external attacks and insider threats, almost every second company (48 percent) suffered a data leak in the last year because an employee or contractor was given too many access rights. Given such attack patterns, it is not surprising that companies were most likely to see their IT administrators targeted by cybercriminals (65 percent), followed by engineers and developers (21 percent) and the C-suite (19 percent).
77 percent of the companies use the zero trust approach
The survey also found that 77 percent currently have a zero trust approach in their cybersecurity strategy. 42 percent named the reduction of cyber threats as the main reason, followed by better compliance (30 percent), curbing the abuse of privileged access rights and the inspection and logging of data traffic or access requests (14 percent each).
The most common barriers to adopting Zero Trust include complicated or inadequate security solutions (57 percent), fear of a compromised user experience (43 percent), budget (38 percent), and human resources (30 percent). A large majority of respondents (83 percent) have a privileged access management (PAM) tool integrated into their security infrastructure. 89 percent of these PAM services support a zero trust approach to verify the identity of privileged users.
More security: Privileged Access Management (PAM) tool
“IT administrators hold the keys to the most sensitive and critical systems in their hands. Both internal and external attackers take advantage of this, ”says Özkan Topal, Sales Director at ThycoticCentrify. “Unauthorized access to these systems can lead to far-reaching security incidents. To counter these risks, the introduction of zero trust principles is a very good start. Since privileged identities play such a striking role in most data leaks, it makes sense to start the path to a comprehensive zero trust approach with a privileged access management solution based on a least privilege model of access control . " The full results of the survey are available online.
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About ThycoticCentrify ThycoticCentrify is a leading provider of cloud identity security solutions that enable digital transformation on a large scale. ThycoticCentrify's industry-leading Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions reduce risk, complexity and cost while protecting enterprise data, devices and code in cloud, on-premises and hybrid environments. More than 14.000 leading companies around the world, including more than half of the Fortune 100, trust ThycoticCentrify. Customers include the world's largest financial institutions, intelligence agencies, and critical infrastructure companies. Whether human or machine, in the cloud or on-premises - with ThycoticCentrify, privileged access is secure.