INFOGRAPHIC
INFOGRAPHIC
New BeyondTrust research
finds 64% of businesses have
suffered an insider breach
BeyondTrust’s annual Privileged Access Threat Report
highlights that greater privileged access visibility and
improved integrations are vital to tackling the modern
threat landscape.
B
eyondTrust, a global leader in
privileged access management, has
released the 2019 Privileged Access
Threat Report. In its fourth edition, the
global survey explores the visibility, control
and management that IT organisations
across the globe – including the UAE
and Saudi Arabia – have over employees,
contractors and third-party vendors with
privileged access to their IT networks.
According to the report, 64% believe they’ve
likely had either a direct or indirect breach
due to misused or abused employee access
in the last 12 months and 62% believe
they’ve had a breach due to compromised
vendor access.
do their jobs effectively but need this access
granted in a way that doesn’t compromise
security or impede productivity,” said Morey
Haber, CTO and CISO of BeyondTrust.
“In the face of growing threats, there has
never been a greater need to implement
organisation-wide strategies and solutions
to manage and control privileged access in a
way that fits the needs of the user.”
The businesses surveyed reported an
average of 182 vendors logging in to their
systems every week. At organisations with
5,000 plus employees, 23% say they have
more than 500 vendors logging in regularly,
highlighting the sheer scope of the risk
exposure. This year’s report uncovered that
trust in vendor access is now lower than trust
in employee access, with only one in four
(25%) saying they completely trust vendors,
in comparison to 37% of employees. This
is a stark comparison to last year’s report,
where 72% of businesses admitted that
they have cultures that are too trusting of
third parties.
In an age where data breaches have
immense financial and reputational
implications for businesses, it’s a positive
step that these organisations are now
assessing the level of trust they place in their
third-party vendors.
The report also delves into the threats
posed by emerging technologies. The risks
Poor security hygiene by employees
continues to be a challenge for most
organisations. Writing down passwords, for
example, was cited as a problem by 60%
of organisations, while colleagues telling
each other passwords was also an issue for
58% of organisations, a steady increase
from 2018’s statistics. The report also
highlighted regional differences, with only
28% of Middle East businesses expressing
worries about employees downloading data
onto a memory stick, while 42% see this as
an issue in APAC.
Ultimately, 71% of organisations agree
that they would be more secure if they
restricted employee device access.
However, this isn’t usually realistic, let alone
conducive to productivity.
“Both internal employees and third-party
vendors need privileged access to be able to
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