Okta’s 2019 Business @ Work report found that the security-based app were the fastest growing ones that integrate with their system. One of those apps? LastPass, which grew by 132% last year. Okta anonymized customer data from their network to look at what applications businesses are using – and in the fastest growing category the top 3 were for security.
So this begs the question: Why are companies rushing to use security related apps like LastPass now more than ever?
It’s a scary world out there
The most obvious first reason is the increasingly threatening security landscape. 2018 saw some high-profile data breaches from Twitter, MyFitnessPal, Marriot and lots more. Companies don’t want to be the next breach in the news, but they also don’t want their employee data to be compromised.
It makes sense that Okta has seen a growth in LastPass as companies realize the need to protect their passwords. As the 2017 Verizon Data Breach Report found, 81% of breaches are related to weak or reused passwords.
Password managers are a logical first step to prevent that 81% by making it easy for employees to store all their passwords securely and
generate unique passwords so they don’t have to reuse the same ones.
Employees have awful habits
The Okta report survey results showed that nearly 40% of respondents said they recycle the same 2-4 passwords for almost everything, and 10% use just one password for all accounts. Also, 43% said they only change passwords when required to do so. These data support similarly shocking results we found in our
2018 Psychology of the Password Report. 53% of respondents said they have not changed a password in the last 12 months after a breach in the news, and only 55% said they would change their password even if they knew their account was hacked! Also,
our research with Ovum found similar results in 2017. So this habit doesn’t seem to be changing.
Those in charge of the security of their companies are starting to take note of how dangerous this poor password behavior is for their employees and their business. The risk is too high to ignore, so they are implementing security apps like password managers that can help.
Security apps have gotten more accessible and easy to use
The idea that a security product is cumbersome, expensive, and hard to use is still a common misconception. While this may be true for some implementations, there are lots of more consumer-friendly products on the market that make it easy to protect yourself and your business online.
LastPass is used by over 16 million people – and the good news is when companies deploy LastPass to the whole organization their employees have an easy time using it. It was designed with the end user in mind. We’ve noticed this ease of use has only increased with improvements to
Android and
iOS that let users autofill their login information on mobile apps and sites. Free, Premium and Families products make it easy for individuals and families to stay safe online, while our Teams and Enterprise products use the same user-friendly UI while also providing admins with control and visibility over employee password behavior.
It makes sense to us why security apps are growing in popularity – but maybe we’re biased.
Take a look the Okta report for yourself and see what you think.
