CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM
(NYSE: IBM) Security today announced the results of a
global survey examining consumers' digital behaviors during the
pandemic, as well as their potential long-term impact on
cybersecurity. With society becoming increasingly accustomed to
digital-first interactions, the study found that preferences for
convenience often outweighed security and privacy concerns among
individuals surveyed – leading to poor choices around passwords and
other cybersecurity behaviors.
Consumers' lax approach to security, combined with rapid digital
transformation by businesses during the pandemic, may provide
attackers with further ammunition to propagate cyberattacks across
industries – from ransomware to data theft. According to IBM
Security X-Force, bad personal security habits may also carry over
to the workplace and can lead to costly security incidents for
companies, with compromised user credentials representing one of
the top root sources of cyberattacks reported in
2020.1
The global survey2 of 22,000 individuals in 22
markets, conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of IBM Security,
identified the following effects of the pandemic on consumer
security behaviors:
- Digital Boom will Outlast Pandemic Protocols:
Individuals surveyed created 15 new online accounts during the
pandemic on average, equating to billions of new accounts created
around the world. With 44% reporting that they do not plan to
delete or deactivate these new accounts, these consumers will have
an increased digital footprint for years to come, greatly expanding
the attack surface for cybercriminals.
- Account Overload Led to Password Fatigue: The surge in
digital accounts led to lax password behaviors among those
surveyed, with 82% of respondents admitting to reusing credentials
at least some of the time. This means that many of the new accounts
created during the pandemic likely relied on reused email and
password combinations, which may have already been exposed via data
breaches over the past decade.
- Convenience Often Outweighed Security & Privacy:
More than half (51%) of millennials surveyed would rather place an
order using a potentially insecure app or website, rather than call
or go to a physical location in person. With these users more
likely to overlook security concerns for the convenience of digital
ordering, the burden of security will likely fall more heavily on
companies providing these services to avoid fraud.
As consumers lean further into digital interactions, these
behaviors also have the potential to spur adoption of emerging
technologies in a variety of settings – from telehealth, to digital
identity.3
"The pandemic led to a surge in new online accounts, but
society's growing preference for digital convenience may come at a
cost to security and data privacy," said Charles Henderson, Global Managing Partner and
Head of IBM Security X-Force. "Organizations must now consider the
effects of this digital dependence on their security risk profile.
With passwords becoming less and less reliable, one
way that organizations can adapt, beyond multi-factor
authentication, is shifting to a zero trust approach
– applying advanced AI and analytics throughout the
process to spot potential threats, rather than assuming a user is
trusted after authentication."
Consumers Report High Expectations for Ease of
Access
The survey shed light on a variety of consumer
behaviors impacting the cybersecurity landscape today and moving
forward. As individuals increasingly embrace digital interactions
in more realms of their lives, the survey found that many have also
become primed with high expectations for ease of access and
use.
- 5 Minute Rule: According to the survey, most adults
(59%) expect to spend less than 5 minutes setting up a new digital
account.
- Three Strikes, You're Out: Globally, respondents would
attempt 3-4 logins before resetting their password. These resets
not only cost companies' money, but they can also pose security
threats if used in combination with an already compromised email
account.
- Committed to Memory: 44% of respondents store online
account information in their memory (most common method,) while 32%
write this information on paper.
- Multi-factor Authentication: While password reuse is a
growing problem, adding an additional factor of verification for
higher risk transactions can help reduce the risk of account
compromise. The survey found that around two-thirds of global
respondents had used multi-factor authentication within the past
few weeks of being surveyed.
Diving Deeper into Digital Healthcare
During the
pandemic, digital channels became a crucial component to address
massive demands for COVID-19 vaccines, testing and treatment.
Consumers' adoption of a wide variety of digital channels for
COVID-19-related services may spur greater digital engagement with
healthcare providers moving forward by lowering the barrier for
entry among new users, according to IBM Security
analysis.4 According to the survey:
- 63% of respondents engaged with pandemic-related
services5 via some form of digital channel (web, mobile
app, email, and text message).
- While websites/web apps were the most common method of digital
engagement, mobile apps and text messages also received significant
usage – with 39% and 20% engaging via these channels,
respectively.
As healthcare providers push further into telemedicine, it will
become increasingly important for their security protocols to be
designed to withstand this shift – from keeping critical IT systems
online, to protecting sensitive patient data and continued HIPAA
compliance. This includes data segmentation and implementing strict
controls so that users can only access specific systems and data,
limiting the impact of a compromised account or device. To prepare
for the event of ransomware and extortion attacks, patient data
should be encrypted, preferably at all times, and there must be
reliable backups in place so that systems and data can be quickly
restored with minimal interruption.
Paving the Way for Digital Credentials
The concept of
digital health passes, or so-called vaccine passports, introduced
consumers to a real-world use case for digital credentials, which
offer a technology-based approach to verify specific aspects of our
identity. According to the survey, 65% of adults globally say they
are familiar with the concept of digital credentials, and 76% would
be likely to adopt them if they became commonly acceptable.
This exposure to the idea of digitized proof of identity during
the pandemic may help spur wider adoption of modernized systems of
digital identity, which could potentially replace the need for
traditional forms of ID like passports and driver's licenses,
offering a way for consumers to provide the limited information
required for a specific transaction. While leveraging a digital
form of identity has the potential to create a sustainable model
for the future, security and privacy measures must be put in place
to help protect against counterfeiting – calling for the
capabilities of blockchain solutions to verify and provide the
ability to update these credentials in the event they are
compromised.
How Organizations Can Adapt to Shifting Consumer Security
Landscape
Businesses that have become increasingly reliant
on digital engagement with consumers as a result of the pandemic
should consider the impact this has on their cybersecurity
risk profiles. In light of shifting consumer behaviors and
preferences around digital convenience, IBM Security suggests that
organizations consider the following security recommendations:
- Zero Trust Approach: Given increasing risks, companies
should consider evolving to a zero trust security approach, which
operates under the assumption that an authenticated identity or the
network itself may already be compromised, and therefore
continuously validates the conditions for connection between users,
data and resources to determine authorization and need. This
approach requires companies to unify their security data and
approach, with the goal of wrapping security context around every
user, every device and every interaction.
- Modernizing Consumer IAM: For companies that want to
continue leveraging digital channels for consumer engagement,
providing a seamless authentication process is important. Investing
in a modernized Consumer Identity and Access Management (CIAM)
strategy can help companies increase digital engagement – providing
a frictionless user experience across digital platforms and using
behavioral analytics to help decrease the risk of fraudulent
account use.
- Data Protection & Privacy: Having more digital users
means that companies will also have more sensitive consumer data to
protect. With data breaches costing companies $3.86 million on average among those studied,
6 organizations must put strong data security controls
in place to protect against unauthorized access – from monitoring
data to detect suspicious activity, to encrypting sensitive data
wherever it travels. Companies should also implement the right
privacy policies on-premises and in the cloud in order to help
maintain consumer trust.
- Put Security to the Test: With usage and reliance on
digital platforms changing rapidly, companies should consider
dedicated testing to verify that the security strategies and
technologies they've relied on previously still hold up in this new
landscape. Re-evaluating the effectiveness of incident response
plans and testing applications for security vulnerabilities are
both important components of this process.
To view the full report, please visit:
http://ibm.biz/IBMSecurity_ConsumerSurvey
About IBM Security
IBM Security offers one of the most
advanced and integrated portfolios of enterprise security products
and services. The portfolio, supported by world-renowned IBM
Security X-Force® research, enables organizations to effectively
manage risk and defend against emerging threats. IBM operates
one of the world's broadest security research, development and
delivery organizations, monitors 150 billion+ security events
per day in more than 130 countries, and has been granted more than
10,000 security patents worldwide. For more information, please
check www.ibm.com/security, follow @IBMSecurity on Twitter or visit
the IBM Security Intelligence blog.
Report Methodology: A global survey was
conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of IBM in March 2021. The study was conducted among 22,000
adults in 22 markets (1,000 respondents per market) including
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Italy,
Japan, Mexico, Peru,
Singapore, South Korea, Spain, UK, US, Middle East, Central & Eastern Europe, Nordics, and BNL (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg).
###
Media Contact:
Cassy
Lalan
IBM Security Communications
319-230-2232
cllalan@us.ibm.com
____________________
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1 IBM
X-Force Threat Index 2021: Compromised user credentials were #3
initial attack vector for cyberattacks in 2020, representing 18% of
incidents reported.
|
2 Global survey was conducted by
Morning Consult on behalf of IBM in March 2021. The study was
conducted among 22,000 adults in 22 markets.
|
3
Prediction based on IBM Security insights
|
4
Prediction based on IBM Security analysis
|
5 Includes
COVID-19 financial relief, testing, treatment and
vaccinations
|
6 2020
Cost of a Data Breach Report, benchmark study conducted by Ponemon
Institute, analyzed and sponsored by IBM Security
|
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SOURCE IBM