GrIDsure, an alternative to PINs and passwords, announced that it has partnered with Osirium, a provider of secure system administration solutions. The partnership will enable Osirium to offer GrIDsure’s authentication method to customers using its central single sign-on administration system.
To examine the state of system administration security, Osirium recently did a survey of 452 IT security administrators which showed that a significant proportion of companies have lax security policies and procedures and sysadmin teams which are becoming increasingly burdened by the common daily tasks they need to complete. The survey results suggested that:
48% used either a static password or a user ID to authenticate access to security devices
37% wrote down their passwords for accessing security devices
46% shared their passwords with colleagues
33% had to gather data daily for compliance purposes, this process taking 20% of respondents more than 30 minutes to complete and another 20% at least 60 minutes.
David Guyatt, CEO of Osirium said: “Although we knew that many system administrators were not implementing appropriate authentication measures to control access to security devices we were still surprised by the severity of the problem, as highlighted by our survey results. It is clear that security practices are often not rigorous enough, mainly due to the fact that overburdened but technically savvy sysadmin teams can very easily circumvent existing security procedures in order to get the job done as quickly and efficiently as they can.
“We believe that using strong authentication is best practice for administrators who are accessing security devices, rather than relying on problematic static usernames and passwords."
Stephen Howes, CEO, GrIDsure added: “Integrating GrIDsure into Osirium’s solution has once again shown that GrIDsure can be a very effective extra ingredient in the overall security mix of a solution. The research shows that IT administrators are still not taking authentication seriously enough, so we’re pleased to be offering Osirium’s customers a user friendly and cost effective strong authentication solution for accessing their security devices.”
About the survey
The survey was conducted in March 2010.
A total of 452 security administrators from around the globe responded
The survey was administrated by Zoomerang. To download the survey visit –
