Security Professionals Aren't Always Secure

Security Professionals Admit to Being Weak Link at Work

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One of the greatest concerns corporate IT departments have regarding bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies is data security.

Ironically, one of the weakest links in the corporate data security chain turns out not to be the devices themselves, but the very guardians of the gates— the security professionals.

Though security professionals have embraced BYOD and the "anytime, anywhere" access, most admit that they themselves continue to employ poor password security practices in this new, more open ecosystem.

A significant majority (83 percent) of security professionals use the same password across multiple applications — violating a password security best practice, according to a survey designed to discover how work habits are changing as a result of cloud and mobile enterprise trends.  The survey was conducted by Ping Identity, an identity-security company.

Security professionals are also on the leading edge of the move to mobility, the survey found. More than half (55 percent) of security professionals say they use a tablet for work, and 45 percent said they use a tablet over their laptops or PCs for work purposes more than 25 percent of the time.

Nearly half (49 percent) logged into a work application from a mobile device 10 or more times a day, further contributing to the growth of points of vulnerability.

Discounting email and calendar apps, 59 percent of respondents said they have three or more apps on their mobile devices that are considered to be core to their job. And a quarter of security professionals have five or more apps that are core to their job.

"The data shows that the mobile-powered workforce is here to stay, but even those most concerned with security aren't very secure users," said Roger Oberg, Ping Identity's vice president of marketing and product management.

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