Legacy applications put enterprise network security at risk across EMEA and North America, according to a survey. In examining the hidden role of legacy applications in desktop the report reveals why many IT administrators today consider the desktop as the IT equivalent of the Wild West.
Key findings:
-- In organizations with more than 2500 desktops, it was Intuit QuickBooks (80 percent of respondents) that most often forced IT administrators to elevate network access privileges to the more risky administrator or super user status.
-- In enterprises with fewer than 2500 desktops, in-house bespoke applications (18 percent of respondents), and a range of 'other legacy apps' (55 percent) including old mainframe apps, Flash and Adobe Software, and rogue apps such as iPhone apps, and gaming software, which force IT Admins to elevate privileges to administrator status.
-- IT admins and help desk personnel say they spend more than 1/4 of their time fixing problems caused by over-privileged users, costing $1,000s per user each year; 90 percent of IT admins and help desk personnel who admit to experiencing the headache of managing the impact of legacy apps would welcome help with automating the process of dealing with over-privileged users.
Findings from IT administrators and help desk operatives were confirmed by control group of 40 IT analysts and consultants.
Comment from Geoff Haggart, BeyondTrust President of International Sales: This report offers a revealing insight into the state of desktops today. They are littered with legacy applications, many requiring Windows administrator or power user status to run, and so leaving IT administrators caught between a rock and a hard place. Effective access management is practically impossible for them because adopting best practice of removing administrator or super user status, means shutting down applications the enterprise still relies on to conduct it's business day-to-day. Legacy apps make it increasingly difficult for IT administrators to thwart attacks by people with legitimate access to an organization's computers, devices and networks. These insider threats represents a growing problem across the globe, frustrating admins, auditors and managers who lack the resources to properly identify them, oversee their behavior and protect mission-critical information technology (IT) assets from the misuse of privilege.
About the survey: BeyondTrust, a provider of privilege authorization management, access control and security solutions, surveyed 185 IT administrators and help desk operatives, collectively responsible for more than 250,000 individual Windows desktops to determine why effectively managing network access from the desktop -- whether in a company with 100 or 10,000 seats -- is so fraught with difficulty.
Contact: The report is available here.
No comments:
Post a Comment