Adelaide, Australia – 25 October 2018: Cyber security software specialist, emt Distribution today revealed the results of its MSP Privileged Account Management Survey, finding that 85% of managed service providers believe there is growth potential in offering password or privileged account management as a service.
Other key findings of emt Distribution’s MSP Privileged Account Management Survey include:
- Over three quarters (77%) of MSPs rated their customers’ current cyber security maturity as moderate or low.
- Over half (56%) of MSPs said their customers had a password problem.
- Of MSPs that had access to customer systems, 82% employed a privileged or password management solution.
- Almost half (46%) of MSPs offered no password or privileged account management services to their customers.
“There appears to be a worrying disconnect between the security MSPs have in place within their own operational environment and what their customers are doing,” said Scott Hagenus, CMO for emt Distribution. “While 82% of MSPs employ a privileged or password management solution, 46% do not offer a similar service to their customers.”
Of the 242 notifiable data breaches reported in Q2, 2018, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) identified malicious or criminal attacks as the most common cause (142 notifications or 59%). The majority (63%) of these, the OAIC said, were the result of compromised or stolen credentials and 14% were brute force attacks.
“It’s clear from both the OAIC’s last report and our survey that Australian organisations have serious deficiencies in their credential security,” said Hagenus. “There is a very real opportunity for MSPs to get ahead of the curve and take control of this process for their customers, and they can do this without long skilling up periods using leading privileged account management (PAM) solutions.”
With increasing awareness of its effectiveness in protecting credentials, demand for PAM solutions is growing rapidly among government and enterprise organisations, with SMBs and mid-tier enterprises not far behind. For MSPs and their solutions providers, this represents a strong business opportunity.
“The OAIC’s report is telling and demonstrates that Australian organisations still have a long way to go to secure their privileged accounts,” said Simon Azzopardi, Senior Vice President, International (EMEA & APAC) for PAM solutions provider and emt partner Thycotic. “This in turn reflects the enormous growth potential in the Australian market. We’ve seen our channel community grow rapidly over the last 18 months and Thycotic has been achieving over 60% year-on-year growth as a result of the increasing demand for our solutions.”
“Nearly every breach you read headlines about started with a compromised credential,” said Jonathan Sander, CTO of STEALTHbits Technologies Inc., an emt solutions partner focused on protecting an organisation’s sensitive data. “The most important job of the security industry is to protect credentials – and therefore the data those credentials protect. We accomplish that by ensuring users are aware of basic safety practices and that policies and controls are providing essential defences in this new, malware saturated world.”
Download the 2018 emt Distribution MSP Privileged Account Management Survey at: www.emtdist.com/msp-privileged-account-survey
About emt Distribution
emt Distribution is an Adelaide-based value added distributor and vendor representative with a presence in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines, UAE and South Africa. It also works closely with like-minded distributors in the UK, Netherlands and Germany. emt offers solutions that address the top four mitigation strategies to prevent cyber security incidents, the broader strategies in the Australian Government’s Information Security Manual (ISM) and solutions to assist channel partners and MSPs in delivering what their customers need. emt offers pre and post sales support, channel development, engaged sales processes and marketing assistance for both vendors and channel partners. See: www.emtdist.com