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Only 18% of IT Pros Confident in Current Password Risk Management

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Many are having trouble maintaining the security of their employees’ log-in information, resulting in serious risks to their networks and private information. According to a recent LastPass and VansonBourne survey of 750 IT and security professionals in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia and Singapore, only 18% feel their company’s current access security is “fully secure and does not require improvement.” Risk management professionals have a significant role to play in determining how their organizations handle these risks and protect their data.

Some of the biggest ways that employees’ poor password management creates potential security threats to organizations’ data, according to the security professionals surveyed, are password reuse (according to 67%), weak passwords (65%), and not changing default passwords (36%), according to the security professionals surveyed. Nearly all respondents (95%) said that the risks that come along with using passwords create threats to the organization.

Given the importance of strong login information, companies often attempt to implement password rules to reduce security risks, such as requiring employees to choose complex passwords and change them frequently. However, these issues can lead to frustrations for both IT staff and employees. According to the LastPass/VansonBourne survey, the top frustrations for IT are employees reusing passwords for multiple applications, forgetting their passwords, and the time it takes to manage the company’s passwords. Employees are frustrated by having to regularly change their passwords, remember multiple passwords, and type long and complicated passwords.

The rapid increase in the number of employees working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic has also exacerbated the risks, given a corresponding surge in cyberattacks on remote workers since March. Many employees are now working on home networks that may not have the protections that office networks offer, their passwords may not follow the stringent guidelines their companies would normally require, and they may store their passwords in less secure ways. In fact, Entrust Datacard released a survey showing that 42% of employees working from home kept passwords by physically writing them down, while 34% saved them in their phones and 27% kept them on their computers. The survey also found that almost 20% of employees reused passwords across multiple systems, which could make it easier for malicious actors to compromise those systems.

Maintaining Secure Logins

There are ways for risk professionals to help protect their companies’ systems and data. Experts recommend mandatory cybersecurity training for all employees, including instructions on how to choose adequate passwords, how often to change them and how to avoid cyber threats like phishing and malware.

There are also technological ways that risk managers can help secure their organizations’ passwords. As a first step, the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) recommends that organizations ensure that employees’ passwords do not match those exposed in previous data breaches.

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There are publicly available services online that allow users to check whether email addresses and passwords have been compromised in breaches.

Additionally, the NIST recommends that employers restrict passwords to those that are not dictionary words, are not made up of repeated or sequential characters (such as 11111 or 12345 or qwerty), and do not contain specifics like the company’s name or the user’s name. NIST also suggests using multi-factor authentication (MFA), which would require employees to provide their login and password as well as a second piece of information, biometric data, or a physical device like a security key to verify their identity and log in.

With so many passwords to remember, a password manager—a program that stores and creates multiple complex passwords—may also be a good choice for organizations to protect their systems.

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Like all security precautions, password managers are not perfect. While still recommending their use, the Electronic Frontier Foundation warns that “using a password manager creates a single point of failure,” “password managers are an obvious target for adversaries” and “research suggests that many password managers have vulnerabilities.
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While a password manager or single sign-on technology can have benefits like faster authentication and letting employees remember fewer passwords, they also have downsides. The IT professionals surveyed by LastPass cited “the initial financial investment required to migrate to such solution,” “the regulations around the storage of the data required,” and “the initial time required to migrate to new types of methods” as the biggest challenges about using this technology. Additionally, 74% surveyed said that they thought employees at their companies would likely prefer to continue using passwords over passwordless methods because it was more familiar.

Americans Mistrust Companies with Personal Data, Study Shows

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According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center, most Americans believe that companies are tracking their activities on and offline, and that this activity is unavoidable. Not only that, but many also believe that they have little control over who can access an array of personal details, such as their location and online activity, including purchases they have made online or in person. This mistrust, coupled with the advent of more stringent data privacy regulations, means a more complex risk landscape for businesses operating online.

While companies often market services that collect data as improving the customer experience, those users likely disagree.

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In fact, 81% of the American public believe that the risks of companies collecting their data outweigh the benefits. This may have to do with a lack of understanding of what companies do with their data—59% say “they have very little/no understanding about what companies do with the data collected.”

It may also be a perceived lack of control over how companies are collecting and using that data, with 81% saying that “they have very little/no control” over companies collecting their data, and 79% “very/somewhat concerned about how companies use the data collected.” With more online activity, 72% of respondents said that “all, almost all or most of what they do online or while using their cellphone is being tracked by advertisers, technology firms or other companies,” and 64% report seeing ads based on their personal data.

Many companies outline how they use customer data in terms of service or other privacy disclaimers—according to the survey, 81% of respondents say they are asked to agree to a privacy policy at least once a month, and 25% almost daily. However, 74% report that they sometimes or never read a company’s privacy policy before agreeing, and only 22% read the entire text if they do read it.

Pew Data Trust

Security is also a worry, with 70% reporting that they feel like their data is less secure than it was five years ago and only 6% saying it is more secure today than in the past.

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Considering the vast array of data breaches, seemingly across all industries, this is likely not surprising.

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Millions of Americans have received notices from their banks, hospitals, or even their hardware store or ride-share app that their personal data has been compromised. According to cybersecurity company Norton, the first half of 2019 saw 3,800 breaches exposing 4.1 billion records, a 54% increase from the first half of 2018.

Given these results, it is no wonder that states, countries, and regions are beginning to enact strict regulations about data privacy. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which provides protections for the data of California residents, also exposes businesses that collect, store, use and disclose those residents’ data to serious liabilities. In response to some companies hiding breaches from the public, states are also weighing stronger breach reporting requirements with larger fines for violations. Whether these efforts will diminish user mistrust is unclear—63% said that “they understand very little or nothing at all about the laws and regulations that are currently in place to protect their data privacy.”

Pregnancy-Tracking Apps Pose Challenges for Employees

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As more companies embrace health-tracking apps to encourage healthier habits and drive down healthcare costs, some employees are becoming uncomfortable with the amount and types of data the apps are sharing with their employers, insurance companies and others.

This is especially true for apps that track fertility and pregnancy. As the Washington Post recently reported, these apps collect huge amounts of personal health information, and are not always transparent about who has access to it. The digital rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation even published a paper in 2017 titled The Pregnancy Panopticon detailing the security and privacy issues with pregnancy-tracking apps. Employers can also pay extra for some pregnancy-tracking apps to provide them with employees’ health information directly, ostensibly to reduce health care spending and improve the company’s ability to plan for the future.

Given the documented workplace discrimination against women who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, users may worry that the information they provide the apps could impact employment options or treatment by colleagues and managers. Pregnancy-tracking apps also collect infinitely more personal data than traditional health-tracking apps and devices like step-counters or heart rate monitors. This can include everything from what medications users are taking and when they are having sex or their periods, to the color of their cervical fluid and their doctors’ names and locations.

Citing discomfort with providing this level of information, the Washington Post reported some women have even taken steps to obscure their personal details when using the apps, for fear that their employers, insurance companies, health care providers or third parties may have access to their data and could use it against them in some way. They use fake names or fake email addresses and only give the apps select details or provide inaccurate information. Fearing the invasion of their newborn children’s privacy, some have even chosen not to report their children’s births on the apps, despite this impacting their ability to track their own health and that of their newborn on the app.

Like many other apps or online platforms, it may be difficult to parse out exactly what health-tracking apps are doing with users’ information and what you are agreeing to when you sign up. When employers get involved, these issues get even more difficult. By providing incentives—either in the form of tangible rewards like cash or gift cards, or intangible benefits such as looking like a team player—companies may actually discourage their employees from looking closely at the apps’ terms of use or other key details they need to fully inform the choice to participate or not.

While getting more information about employees’ health may offer ways to improve a workforce’s health and reduce treatment costs, companies encouraging their employees to use these apps are also opening themselves up to risks. As noted above, apps are not always transparent as to what information they are storing and how. Depending on the apps’ security practices, employees’ data may be susceptible to hacking or other misuse by third-party or malicious actors. For example, in January 2018, fitness-tracking app Strava released a map of users’ activity that inadvertently exposed sensitive information about military personnel’s locations, including in war zones. Given the kinds of personal details that some apps collect, health app data could also put users at risk of identity theft or other types of fraud.

Tracking, storing, and using workers’ personal health information also exposes employers and insurance companies to a number of risks and liabilities, including third-party data storage vulnerabilities and data breaches. This is especially important in places governed by stringent online data protection regulations like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In addition to the risks of reputation damage, companies that are breached or otherwise expose employees’ personal information could face significant regulatory fines.

People using health-tracking apps, especially fertility-related apps, should weigh the costs and benefits of disclosing personal information against how apps and others are using this information. Companies who encourage their employees to use these apps and collect their personal health details should also be as transparent as possible about how they are using it, and implement measures to protect workers’ personal data to the fullest extent possible and ensure that managers are not using this data to discriminate against workers.

NCSA and NASDAQ Advise Risk Managers to Look ‘Beyond IT’ Following a Breach

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NEW YORK — “Incident Response and Recovery” was the theme of the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and Nasdaq Cybersecurity Summit on April 17. Security and risk professionals from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and various companies and organizations convened at the Nasdaq Marketsite to discuss methods that focus on resilience and recovery following a cyber attack or data breach.

NCSA Executive Director Kelvin Coleman led the fireside chat with Matthew Travis, deputy director for the DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The timing of Travis’ appearance was unique, considering that Kirstjen Nielsen–formerly the secretary of Homeland Security and Travis’ director–recently resigned from her post on April 7. While that announcement grabbed widespread attention due to her involvement with the humanitarian and immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, it also has major impacts for the country’s efforts to counteract cyberrisk and data breaches. Last September, Nielsen announced the formation of the National Risk Management Center (NRMC), an initiative focused on defending critical infrastructure from cyberattacks and providing a single point of access to the full range of government activities to defend against cyber threats.

“There is no doubt [Nielsen] was the most cyber-savvy secretary the department’s ever had. She brought real bonafide domain expertise in cybersecurity to the department,” Travis said. He added that the creation of CISA is her legacy and that the relationship with Kevin McAleenan, the new acting secretary of homeland security, has been harmonious.   

Travis reminded attendees that its partnerships with the private sector were crucial and that CISA regularly monitors national critical functions such as elections, electrical grids and financial transactions, which he said are the “big things that drive our economy.” He also said that companies can leverage CISA resources immediately after a breach as a supplement to the FBI’s criminal investigation.

“We’re going to help you understand exactly what happened and help you recover the data and mitigate some of the impact. The private sector firms do that very well, but the difference is that…

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[CISA] is free,” he said. “That is where we would like to work with owners and operators, when there is an event, to help them get back on their feet as soon as possible.”

Additionally, Coleman and Travis discussed that though CISA is not part of the intelligence community, it does have access to the intelligence collection and monitors trends that can be used to warn private sector companies of cyberrisks. He cited the recent Domain Name System (DNS) infrastructure hijacking campaign that CISA warned about in February—in which at least 40 different organizations across 13 different countries were compromised—as an example of the agency taking steps to alert both the public and private sectors.   

“When we issue technical alerts or emergency directives,” Travis said, “[we] communicate to our stakeholders what to look out for.”

How to Reduce Uncertainty After A Breach  

In the next session, panelists agreed that even when companies use new technologies to remedy security flaws and migrate data to cloud storages, new vulnerabilities occur. Dr. Michael Siegel, principal research scientist and director of cybersecurity at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said that the old adage of risks being rooted in people continue to be prophetic.

“It’s always been about people and things that sit in our systems for a long time,” he said. “You’ve heard this since the 2000s and it’s still true, and even more true today.”

Should a business find itself in a situation where ransom is being demanded for intangible assets and information, Siegel advised that then is not the time when stakeholders should first decide whether they’d be willing to pay.

“They should know whether they’d pay ransomware because they have [presumably] done tabletop exercises…that will be absolutely essential because any time you wait and indecision will be [catastrophic],” he said. “You have to have practiced it in advance. You can build a scenario-generator and run it through a classroom.”

Companies can also learn from breaches, if tracking is implemented within their code, noted Tyler Shields, vice president of strategy for Sonatype, and open source governance platform. “The ability to track your code from creation to deployment—that entire life cycle—needs to be instrumented so that when a breach occurs you know what component was affected, where it came from, who implemented it and what protections were in place.”

Incident Response Recovery Beyond IT

The final session panelists agreed that holistic approaches were essential for successful responses and recovery periods. Internal and external communications should be well thought-out and designating a person or team to handle them sets the appropriate company precedent. Lisa Plaggemier, chief evangelist at Infosec and NCSA board member said that, for example, while a company’s lawyers are critical during these times, they might not be the best communicators.

“Lawyers, when they write for communications, tend to sound more scary than reassuring,” she said.

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“You want to have collaborations and have that communications person in the room with them.”   

Photo courtesy of the National Cyber Security Alliance

When it comes to crisis communication, Plaggemeir advocated that employees—especially those who detected the incident—should be armed with talking points for traditional and social media outlets to avoid data leakage.

“We want to make sure we equip those people so that the rumor mill doesn’t start flying and we don’t end up with communications that are out of our control,” she said.

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Dovetailing on that notion, moderator Andrew Derboben, senior director of security operations at Nasdaq was quick to mention reputation risk. He said another way to reduce data leakage and misrepresentations in the media—which can further harm a company’s reputation in the aftermath of a breach—is to arm all company employees with a brief script on what to say to anyone, even just passersby making small talk.

“Don’t even have them say ‘no comment,’” Derboben said. “Point them to the experts who have all the data. Because if we’re missing a key piece of information and it’s not communicated properly it could determine how an article will be written.”