Finance IT Overconfident in Machine Identity Tools

A new study found that a majority of financial services security professionals are overly confident about the ability of machine identity protections to defend their organizations's networks, according to Venafi. The report, Securing the Enterprise with Machine Identity Protection, conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Venafi, surveyed 116 IT security professionals from financial services and insurance organizations across the US, UK, Germany, France and Australia. It found that 80% of respondents who are responsible for identity and access management (IAM) trust that automated communications between machines on their networks are mostly or completely secure. In addition, 70% of respondents feel confident that effective protection of machine identities is critical to the long-term security and viability of their companies, the study found. Still, financial services organizations are only tracking an average of 43% of the most common types of machine identities.