In the latest of our posts looking at results of our recent CIO Research project we’re focusing on multi-factor authentication.
38 percent of the CIOs we spoke to as part of our study said that recent, high-profile data breaches experienced by other organizations had prompted them to increase their own security budget. This in itself is encouraging, as it shows more people at the top table of IT are sitting up and taking notice of the threats facing their business.
However, despite increased budgets in a significant proportion of the companies surveyed, the ways in which security was being implemented still left a lot to be desired. Most disturbing, almost half of the CIOs questioned (47 percent) believed a simple log-in and password was a secure enough form of authentication to protect their network and applications.
This attitude towards security may go some way towards explaining the inordinate number of high-profile security breaches which have occurred over the past year or two. While security experts have known for some time that multi-factor authentication is the most effective means of controlling access to sensitive data and systems, this message has clearly not been heard (or perhaps simply not heeded) by those in control of the IT function.
Cost was cited as the main barrier to implementing stronger authentication, with 56 percent of CIOs giving this as the reason why they had not put a more robust system in place. While ongoing economic uncertainty will no doubt be a factor in this lack of investment, we know that almost four in every ten CIOs was able to increase their investment in security this year. This implies authentication is being treated too casually compared to other elements of the security process. So, who does have the X-Factor?
As ever, whether you agree or disagree with our findings we’d love to hear from you. Either post a comment below or send me a message by clicking my name at the top of the page. And if you’d like to take a look at the full whitepaper report, you can download it free here.
