Password insecurity at enterprises

#77 More than two-thirds of organisations are using insecure methods to store administrative and user passwords, according to the survey from information security firm Cyber-Ark.

Some 19 per cent of IT professionals admit that IT staff and other company employees store computer passwords on post-it notes.Twenty-six per cent of firms have insufficient security in place to stop unauthorised members in the IT department from accessing administrative passwords that guard critical business systems.

Findings also reveal that many large organisations around the world are storing administrative passwords, which are the key to business systems, on pieces of paper or in filing cabinets.

I have witnessed this phenomenon in customer assessments I have been involved with. It would seem that the spate of viruses and malicious code has drawn our attention to pumping millions into extra perimeter security and we have taken our eye of the ball of good security principles of the past, like proper password management.