RSA Survey Finds Companies Moving to Cloud-Based PAM Solutions

Thycotic released the findings from its 2019 RSA Conference survey. More than 200 security professionals were surveyed at the 2019 RSA Conference in March and the findings indicate nearly half (47 percent) are already using, planning or exploring deployment of PAM solutions in the cloud. The survey quantified and evaluated security professionals’ current PAM practices, including challenges in adopting PAM solutions and their interest and progress in transitioning to cloud-based PAM solutions. 

According to the RSA survey, PAM adoption is becoming increasingly cloud-based; and the results suggest this cloud migration will continue: 21 percent of companies have adopted a PAM Solution hosted in the cloud as-a-service or plan to implement such technology, and an additional 26 percent are looking to transition to a cloud-based PAM Solution. Only 36 percent say they plan to keep their PAM solution on-premise. The results indicate that organizations see a future with cloud-based security solutions and expect to increase their use of cloud security solutions to 65 percent over the next 1-2 years.

“As more companies move to a cloud-first strategy, momentum is accelerating for adopting cloud-based PAM solutions,” said Joseph Carson, Chief Security Scientist at Thycotic. “Going with cloud allows an organization to pay as you go, reduce wasted time, minimize huge upfront investments and automate updates – along with assuring high availability and geo-redundancy from a genuine SaaS PAM solution.” 

With more than 90 percent of the world’s data stored in the cloud, moving to PAM in the cloud coincides with Thycotic’s survey results that show unauthorized access – which should be protected by a PAM solution – is the top business risk to cloud environments.

Other results from the survey reveal that IT and security teams are still struggling with getting management and daily users to understand the absolute necessity of PAM solutions: 28 percent said the biggest challenge was convincing team members to use the PAM solution, 24 percent said educating organizations’ leaders, and 19 percent said finding the budget for PAM technology. As the threat of cyber-attacks on privileged accounts continues to rise, naturally the deployment of PAM solutions must continue to increase. As a result, PAM awareness is rapidly growing, but still 85 percent of organizations fail to meet basic PAM security standards. Fortunately, 66 percent of respondents are increasing their knowledge of PAM technologies.

To access more details and findings from the 2019 RSA Conference survey, please visit Thycotic’s blog at https://thycotic.com/company/blog/.