IAM, biometrics, zero trust needed for cybersecurity as hybrid work becomes the norm

A new report by technology research and advisory firm Information Services Group (ISG) has highlighted the increasing risks of cyberattacks against enterprise infrastructures in the UK caused by an expansion of the country’s digital footprint.

The same document has also shown how this trend has made organizations more aware of these risks and willing to invest in a wide range of defensive technologies.

Biometrics, though not directly mentioned in the report, is one such technology, with many companies recently investing in biometric logins systems.

The 2021 ISG Provider Lens Cybersecurity – Solutions & Services report highlights digital identity and access management (IAM) solutions, including cloud-based ones, data leakage/loss prevention (DLP) services and zero trust architectures, which are based on continuous digital identity authentication.

The new data by ISG also refers to governance, risk, and compliance practices as elements of concern to UK enterprises, particularly in relation to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

More generally, the report analyzed the capabilities of 98 providers across seven quadrants: IAM, DLP data security; advanced endpoint threat protection, detection and response technical security services; strategic security services, and managed security services both for large accounts and midmarket.

IBM was mentioned as a leading presence across five of these quadrants. Moreover, Accenture, Atos, Broadcom, Capgemini, Deloitte, and Wipro were named as Leaders in three quadrants each and HCL, Microsoft, Orange Cyberdefense, and TCS as Leaders in two quadrants each.

Zero trust investment sparks biometrics adoption

More than three-quarters of companies around the world have increased their prioritization of zero trust security postures, contributing to the adoption of biometrics by 45 percent of global organizations, according to a survey by Okta reported by Security News Desk.

Both biometrics and zero trust are more widely prioritized in Europe than the rest of the world. Biometric technology is now used by 56 percent of organizations in Europe, compared to 43 percent using biometrics in the rest of the world. Passwords (95 percent) and security questions (68 percent) remain widely-used, however. Budgets for zero trust have increased for 2021 at 82 percent of European organizations.

“Overcoming the reliance on passwords is not going to happen overnight, but organisations can start with adopting contextual factors to ease authentication processes,” Okta Chief Security Officer for EMEA Ben King comments. “By embracing passwordless technologies such as biometrics and contextual factors, businesses can increase security and tackle data breaches more effectively.”

Snow study makes the case for hybrid work

A recent study by technology intelligence platform Snow has discussed the state of hybrid work spurred by the pandemic, and how the trend is reportedly going to become the norm in the future.

According to a report released by Snow on July 29, more than 92 percent of the 400 IT leaders surveyed said they were moving or had already moved to a hybrid work mode.

At the same time, only 34 percent of them mentioned IT as the team’s primary focus for the next 12 months, highlighting the complexities connected to this new way of working.

In particular, among the most challenging aspects of the transition to hybrid work are controlling costs (18 percent) as well as unseen application use (16 percent).

In terms of applications used during this transition, video conferencing was ranked as the main type of tool organizations relied on the most in the last year (32 percent), particularly Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Zoom.

In addition, cloud infrastructure, such as Microsoft Azure, AWS, Google Cloud was mentioned by 23 percent of respondents, office suites like Office365, G Suite, and Dropbox Paper by 11 percent, and Specialty software, including Salesforce, Adobe, and others by 11 percent.

Moving forward, the Snow data suggests more than 83 percent of IT leaders are expecting additional funds to support and implement new ways of working.

Of this number, 18 percent of respondents mentioned SaaS applications, 17 percent cloud infrastructure, and 10 percent cybersecurity tools and training.

Article Topics

access management  |  biometrics  |  cloud services  |  cybersecurity  |  digital identity  |  enterprise  |  identity access management (IAM)  |  identity management  |  remote authentication  |  Zero Trust