A survey has found that Identity and Access Management (IAM) was a key concern for firms in Europe’s largest economies this year.
Forrester Research has published a study which suggests that around 60 per cent of UK businesses are hoping to improve data security by implementing strong IAM. The final 40 per cent of respondents displayed a more fragmentary set of priorities, from improved compliance with industry regulations through to reducing the cost of IT.
Current platforms that enable IAM are seen to be insufficient and flawed by many of the respondents who are already employing them in their businesses. 65 per cent of those questioned said that they either had or planned to have single sign-on (SSO) IAM in place internally, with three fifths using web-based SSO.
Forrester Research revealed that a tenth of businesses currently outsource their IAM to third party vendors. However, it is using the report as a springboard to promote the idea of outsourcing to more firms in order to mitigate the risks to data security that are associated with inadequate protection.
Forrester’s Andras Cser said that outsourced IAM services would be an increasingly important data security tool in the next few years and businesses wishing to adopt early could be ahead of the curve as the market begins to mature.
Nearly 30 per cent of respondents said that they were implementing managed accounts for privileged users internally, which suggests that this form of IAM holds limited appeal.
Over 50 per cent of those questioned said that they had either already implemented provisioning, or intended to do so in the near future, which suggests that there could be a shift towards this form of IAM.
Multi-factor authentication is the least prevalent IAM service in today’s market, with under 20 per cent already using it. However, 25 per cent said they would be considering adopting it as part of ongoing IAM plans.
The outsourcing of elements of IT systems to third party vendors seems to be an increasingly popular move, particularly amongst analysts who feel that businesses can benefit from lower costs and improved scalability.
