DO BUSINESSES AND
ORGANISATIONS
NEED TO DO MORE
TO STRENGTHEN
PASSWORD
SECURITY?
L
astPass by
LogMeIn, a leader
in password
management, has
released its 2018
Global Password
Security Report,
revealing true password behaviours in
the workplace and creating a benchmark
that businesses can use to measure
progress when investing in password
security tools. The global report, which
analysed anonymised data in more
than 43,000 companies of all sizes,
industries and geographies using
LastPass as their business password
manager, draws a precise picture of
password management for the business
IT community.
achieving comparable (or even superior)
average security scores:
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Two benchmark scores are highlighted
in the report: The LastPass Security
Score and the LastPass Password
Strength Score.
Data from the report reveals that
while businesses are making strides
in strengthening password security,
there’s more work to be done – with
the average password security score of
organisations found to be 52 out of 100.
“Security professionals often fail to
consider the value of the first factor
of enterprise authentication – the
password. Despite the sophisticated
security measures enterprises
are putting in place, something as
fundamentally simple as a password is
tripping them up,” said Frank Dickson,
Research Vice President, Security
Products at IDC.
“Having a security benchmark such as
what LastPass has provided with this
report will help enterprises quantify their
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Issue 08
Banking: 49
Health: 49
Insurance: 47
Retail: 48
Government: 49
Multi-factor authentication is
gaining in popularity
password risk, compare how they stack
up to enterprises of similar size and
gauge the effectiveness of their enterprise
password management deployment.”
Additional key findings include:
Technology industry is leading
the pack in password security
The highest average security scores are
in the technology industry (53). This is
not surprising due to the privacy and
data laws with which most must comply.
What is surprising, is that heavily-
regulated industries like banking, health,
insurance and government are not
As concerns about password security
grow, multi-factor authentication
is an increasingly-favoured way to
protect an organisation. A total of
45% of businesses use multi-factor
authentication, which represents a
significant increase from last year’s
24.5%. Again, the technology sector
leads the pack with 31% adopting
multi-factor authentication. Whether
it’s a greater awareness of available
options or a stronger culture of security,
organisations in the technology sector
are prioritising extra protection.
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Banking: 16%
Health: 3%
Insurance: 3%
Retail: 13%
Government: 2%
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