Identity management for wearables should be a top priority for IT managers

Centrify, the leader in securing enterprise identities against cyberthreats, has announced the results from a survey conducted at the RSA Conference regarding the prevalence of wearables in the enterprise and the growing concern they pose for IT security. RSA is taking place this week at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco, US.

First, 69 per cent of wearable device owners say they forego login credentials, such as PINs, passwords, fingerprint scanners and voice recognition, to access their devices. 56 per cent of wearable owners use their devices to access business apps such as Box, Slack, Trello, Dropbox, Salesforce, Google Docs, Microsoft Office or a combination of these.

Perhaps most alarming, despite the lack of login credentials and ready access to corporate data, 42 per cent of wearable owners cite identity theft as their top security concern when it comes to their devices. Lack of IT management and device control comes in second (34 per cent) and a general increase in breaches of sensitive work data or information comes in third (22 per cent).

“As wearables become more common in the enterprise, IT departments must take serious steps to protect them as carefully as they do laptops and smartphones,” said Bill Mann, Chief Product Officer for Centrify. “Wearables are deceptively private. Owners may feel that due to their ongoing proximity to the body, they’re less likely to fall into the wrong hands. However, hackers don’t need to take physical possession of a device in order to exploit a hole in security. The best news is that solutions already exist that can easily wrap wearables into the identity management picture.”