Up to 81% of computer security professionals reuse passwords across multiple applications, violating security best practice
The question, “Who watches the watchmen?” appears to apply all too well to passwords – after a survey found that IT security professionals can be less than secure in their own habits.
Up to 81% of IT security professionals reuse passwords across multiple applications, ignoring best practice for security – and probably contradicting the advice they would give to others. The statistic comes from a survey of security professionals conducted at the RSA Conference, held in San Francisco in March this year.
The survey of 198 attendees was conducted by Ping Identity, a cloud-based identity management company.
The research also found that today’s security professionals are highly mobile – choosing tablets over PCs, and having logged in to work applications from locations as diverse as nightclubs, boats and theme parks. Naturally, “the bathroom” also scored highly, with 21% of those polled admitting to logging in from that location.
Nearly half – 49% – of those polled said they logged in to a work application from a mobile device more than 10 times a day. A similar number – 45% – said that they chose a tablet over laptops or PCs more than 25% of the time.
“The data shows that the mobile-powered workforce is here to stay, but even those most concerned with security aren’t very secure users,” said Roger Oberg, Ping Identity’s VP of Marketing and Product Management.