For the Media Industry, High Volume of Vendors Creates Unique User Access Challenges

Today’s Media and Entertainment industry is more technology-driven than ever. From boutique marketing firms to international advertising agencies, from film production companies to news networks, businesses in the Media sector have embraced digital, social, news and print mediums as they adapt to the demands of increasingly-connected consumers and the brands that want to reach them. Media struggles with the reality of a dispersed workforce and a high volume of client projects. Many contract with outside vendors of all types – writers, graphic designers, editors, photographers, developers, videographers, and more – while coordinating on dozens or even hundreds of projects. Many Media businesses find themselves managing a sprawling network of professionals, inside and outside the organization, while often supporting a large number of new and repeat clients. With such a distributed workforce, cyber criminals can find more opportunities – and weaknesses – to exploit. According to one survey, more than half (51%) of media and entertainment firms experienced three or more cyber-attacks over a 12-month period. One-third of the survey respondents also reported that they are either skeptical or not confident that their vendors’ cyber security strategies would protect their intellectual property and assets. With so much work being produced digitally, along with data and assets constantly flowing from one person to another and back, problems inevitably arise around passwords and access security. Employees and contractors need to share remote access to accounts. Without a secure way to do so, they fall back on convenient, insecure password sharing practices, like sending logins by email, text message, or in unprotected spreadsheets. With no system in place to manage user access, it’s difficult for IT to know who exactly has access to any given account, making oversight near-impossible. Once projects are completed, clients move on or contractors are let go, it is also a nightmare for IT to revoke access when they don’t know who had it to begin with – or even which services are in use. Media needs a secure, automated way to manage user access Thankfully, many in the Media industry recognize that the status quo is putting their business at risk. According to a recent LastPass survey, 52% of IT professionals in Media agree that quite a lot of improvements are needed in the security behavior of employees. A third also agree that managing user access is important to the organization. But the benefits aren’t strictly about security. 60% of IT professionals in Media agree that implementing a better approach to IAM could improve employee efficiency. The ability to quickly onboard employees and contractors on client projects, while facilitating easy password and account sharing, would provide a big productivity boost in an industry that relies on those processes day in and day out. Plus, any efforts by IT to implement an IAM solution must prioritize usability; 44% acknowledge that it’s a challenge to meet employee demands for an easy-to-use solution. It’s not enough to buy one or more IAM solutions; IT must ensure employees will readily adopt the technology and actually follow best practices for access security. For those in the Media sector, single sign-on (SSO) and enterprise password management (EPM) are core to addressing the daily demands of user access. It’s essential to evaluate IAM solutions that include both SSO and EPM, since an all-in-one solution is easier for employees to adopt. It’s also more budget-friendly, an important consideration when 37% of IT professionals in Media agree lack of budget is a challenge for IAM projects. Automation of IAM processes is essential to help contractors and employees quickly gain access to resources and can make a tangible impact on productivity organization-wide. With a unified view of end user behavior, IT will have insight into credential sharing and security at a granular level, giving a much more accurate picture of the company’s risk and the ability to lower it. See how the Media industry compares to other verticals when it comes to their IAM program in our new eBook: An Industry-Driven View of Identity and Access Management.