Teleworking boosts security budgets. Ivanti has announced the results of a study revealing the significant increase in IT security budgets of companies as they adapt to the Everywhere Workplace. A large majority of CISOs (92%) stressed the need for additional security measures to improve the performance and security of their employees when working outside the office/anywhere. Four out of five (80%) CISOs also mentioned the need to replace passwords with more secure forms of authentication.
The study, which surveyed 400 CISOs across the EMEA region, revealed that the average security budget last year exceeded €64 million, and 81% expect it to increase in the next 12 months. When asked which software solutions they plan to invest in over the next year, unified device/endpoint management (UEM) and biometric authentication solutions were the most frequently mentioned. Although CISOs say that more than two-fifths (41%) of their overall security budget in the past year was spent on UEM software, four out of five (80%) expect investment in specialized UEM software to increase over the next year. This increase is primarily due to managing and securing the massive influx of devices that attempt to access company resources when employees telecommute.
The study revealed that last year’s teleworking boosts security budgets exceeded 64 million euros
Seven in ten (70%) CISOs said they would increase their organization’s reliance on biometric authentication to enable remote access to company data, and a quarter (24%) said this increase would be significant. The increased focus on biometric authentication is likely due to the significant growth in phishing attacks.
According to the Verizon 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report, 22% of attacks in 2019 were attributed to phishing; and in 2020, 75% of enterprises globally were victims of some type of phishing attack. The primary profile of data compromised in this type of cybercrime was credentialing, including passwords. By adopting mobile device authentication with biometric-based access, enterprises are bypassing the main risk factor in phishing attacks. When CISOs were asked how their investment in biometric authentication solutions would change from last year, 70 percent acknowledged that it would increase, with 22 percent saying the increase would be substantial.
Nigel Seddon, vice president of EMEA West at Ivanti, said, “The rise of telecommuting has led to an explosion of remote devices attempting to access corporate resources. This has been a huge headache for CISOs around the world, as the influx of devices has made it easier for cybercriminals to have multiple new security vectors to target. CISOs need to be confident that they have complete and total visibility into the devices attempting to access their company’s network and then manage and secure those devices to the best of their ability.
As a result, IT security budgets are skyrocketing and out of control. To better manage IT and software expenses, CISOs should consider implementing “spend intelligence” technology. Spend intelligence provides insight into software environments and application spending across IT environments, which improves operational speed and asset visibility and can also reduce costs. Spend intelligence, coupled with a ‘zero trust model to secure digital assets from the cloud to the edge, verifying every asset and transaction before allowing access and coupled with biometric authentication, will create a stronger security standard, improve user experience, control IT security spending and help take pressure off help desks that optimize IT environments.”
