The pandemic-driven shift to remote work has significantly changed how Australian companies are investing in identity and access management capabilities and Zero Trust security, according to a new survey from Ping Identity (NYSE: PING), the Intelligent Identity solution for the enterprise.
The Ping Identity Executive Survey: Growth in Remote Work Fuels Zero Trust Investment asked more than 1,300 senior executives across the U.S., U.K., Germany, France and Australia about how the pandemic has impacted their IT resources and strategies. The survey found that a large number of companies will continue to have a majority of their workforce working remotely, prompting an increase in IT and information security investments in the form of staff and technology.
Along with increased IT investments, companies are also consolidating and rationalising their workforce identity procedures. Combined, they expect these efforts will address issues of security and compliance as well as employee productivity to deliver a superior experience regardless of where work is being done.
“With cyber security now a top-level issue for all organisations, senior managers have a critical need to invest more in identity security capabilities to protect employees and customers in an era when remote working has gone mainstream,” said Ashley Diffey, Head of APAC & Japan, Ping Identity. “As the distributed workforce trend continues to gather pace, embracing security technologies such as identity and zero trust which enable employees to access applications, without opening the enterprise up to additional risk, should be a priority for organisations which value both the integrity of their systems and data and a need to deliver a great customer experience for both customers and employees.”
Read the Ping Identity Executive Survey: Growth in Remote Work Fuels Zero Trust Investment
Key Global Findings:
Increased Spend on Identity Management
- 85% of executives globally and 81% of executives in Australia agree that identity security is critical to their overall user experience.
- 69% of respondents expect to increase their investment in Identity Access Management (IAM) capabilities for their workforce in the next 12 months – ranging from a high of 79% in the U.S. to 67% in Australia and a low of 63% in the U.K.
- 64% estimate that over one half of their workforce is currently using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) as a result of the pandemic. This compares to 72% in Australia. However, just over one third (38%) globally and 46% in Australia made the same claim before the pandemic.
- 60% globally and 65% in Australia increased identity related investments like (IAM), (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO), due to the shift to remote work.
- 55% (57% in Australia) globally invested in new identity security capabilities as a result of the pandemic.
Majority Adoption of Zero Trust
- 82% of executives globally and 93% of Australian executives have deployed, are actively deploying or enhancing, or have already established mature Zero Trust principles.
- 71% believe their investment in Zero Trust will increase over the next 12 months. This compares to 74% in Australia.
- 37% of organisations globally and 39% of Australian enterprises have increased the size of their IT team to support the shift to remote work. The dramatic jump in remote work also prompted execs to elevate IT as a strategic priority.
IT Support for Long Term Remote Work
- 70% (79% in Australia) said the responsibility of security is either the full or majority burden of IT teams.
- 50% of executives globally said that failed login attempts were up by more than 25 percent whereas 77% of Australian executives made the same claim.
- 47% of executives globally expect 25% or more of their staff to spend at least three days out of office in 2022. This compares to 35% in Australia who expect 25% or more of their staff to spend at least three days out of office in 2022.
Additional Resources:
About Ping Identity
Ping Identity is the Intelligent Identity solution for the enterprise. We enable companies to achieve Zero Trust identity-defined security and more personalised, streamlined user experiences. The Ping Intelligent Identity™ platform provides customers, workforce, and partners with access to cloud, mobile, SaaS and on-premises applications across the hybrid enterprise. Over half of the Fortune 100 choose us for our identity expertise, open standards, and partnerships with companies including Microsoft and Amazon. We provide flexible identity solutions that accelerate digital business initiatives, delight customers, and secure the enterprise through multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, access management, intelligent API security, directory, and data governance capabilities. For more information, please visit www.pingidentity.com.
