Dell Survey: Context-Aware Approach Is the Way Forward for Security

A new survey from Dell (DELL) suggests that security needs a new paradigm to improve worker productivity and reduce risk, one that examines the context of access requests rather than relies on passwords or processes to protect the enterprise.

The survey—commissioned by Dell but conducted by Dimensional Research—polled more than 300 business users and 450 IT technology professionals across the United States, United Kingdom and Germany. The survey collected data about how organizations’ current security measures affect employee productivity and the use of what’s called “context-aware security.”

This type of security replaces static access processes—such as password protections, multifactor authentication and separate security measures for remote workers and bring-your-own-device scenarios—with a different approach that evaluates the context surrounding each access request, according to Dell. This allows it to adapt security requirements accordingly, which can deliver the level of security the business needs in real time based on a threat landscape that’s changing all the time, the company said.

The survey found that nearly 100 percent of IT professionals polled recognize the benefits of this type of approach, but only 28 percent said their companies are fully using it. Moreover, more than 60 percent of those polled said that there is a lack of awareness about this new approach to security, which is the greatest barrier to adopting it in their organization.

Ninety-three percent of those polled said that challenges organizations currently face due to a lack of context-aware security include: difficulty in quickly addressing changing security needs; non-standard access needs that require IT intervention; unnecessary impact on employee productivity; and the inability to analyze how or why restrictions are managed to improve worker productivity.

Indeed, current approaches to security either expose organizations to unnecessary risk or go overboard to protect the enterprise, limiting the productivity of workers, said John Milburn, executive director and general manager of Identity and Access Management for Dell Security, in a press release. A context-aware approach would be a middle ground that could solve these issues, he said.

“The business puts security first above employee convenience, and, right now, IT thinks it has only two options for security—turn the dial to 1 (open) or 11 (super secure),” he said. “Context-aware security gives IT the ability to adjust the dial in real time, giving users the convenience they desire without resorting to risky workarounds, and giving the security team the confidence they need to keep the organization both safe and productive.”

The 97 percent of respondents who said a context-aware approach could benefit their organization cited a number of characteristics of this approach that have value. They include the following: prioritizing threats based on context, including types of applications targeted; gaining visibility into the context when assessing risk; addressing changing security needs in real-time and assessing threats based on potential level of harm; and improving worker productivity without sacrificing security.

Other findings of the survey also seem to support a shift to this context-aware approach. Ninety percent of those polled said they use multiple passwords on a daily basis, and 92 percent said they are negatively impacted when required to use additional security for remote work.

Moreover, more than half of respondents said that when looking at the changes made to corporate security policies in the past 18 months, security’s negative day-to-day impact has increased, according to Dell. And nearly 70 percent of those polled said that employee-created workarounds to avoid IT-imposed security measures are actually what poses the greatest risk to organizations.