BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - Mar 11, 2015) - An independent survey commissioned by GlobalSign, a leading provider of identity services for online transactions and the security division of Tokyo-based GMO Internet Group, shows that senior IT decision makers in both the US and the United Kingdom are strongly concerned about their organizations' ability to identify and handle access management as the Internet of Things brings more external communities and devices in contact with the corporate network.
Some 90% of senior IT leaders at organizations with over 1000 employees, surveyed in the US and the UK by technology market research firm Vanson Bourne, said they were either somewhat concerned, very concerned, or extremely concerned about their organizations' identity relationship and access management (IRAM) capabilities, as the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend, more employees working from homes, and smart electronics and wearables allow more physical devices to act as conduits to corporate networks.
In the US, 66% of the IT executives surveyed ranked identity and network access as a matter over which they are either extremely or strongly concerned -- with 21% of them rating their concern as extreme. In contrast only 23% of UK respondents -- nearly one-third of the US level -- stated they were strongly or extremely concerned, with only 3% in the UK saying they were extremely concerned.
Results were consistent across company size -- the survey assessed companies with between 1000 and 3000 employees, and those with over 3000 employees. Results across four key vertical sectors showed that nearly twice the number of IT executives at financial services firms were extremely concerned about their organizations' identity and access management in the face of the Internet of Things than their peer respondents in the manufacturing, retail or other sectors.
"We see this survey as a call to action for IT leaders to realize their peers are concerned, and that it's time to step up their identity and access management policies," said Joan Lockhart, CMO of GlobalSign. "There are many actionable steps that IT managers can take immediately. Already we are seeing government agencies, financial institutions and large-scale enterprises act forcefully using GlobalSign enterprise PKI services and IAM solutions to manage identities within and beyond their organizations, and prepare themselves for the burgeoning Internet of Everything (IoE) opportunity -- and risk," Lockhart said.
The survey was conducted in late January 2015.
GlobalSign will showcase its newest products at the Gartner Identity & Access Management Summit 2015 taking place on March 16-17 in London at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, in booth S12. For more information, please visit europe.gartner.com/iam. You can also follow the event on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Gartner_inc using #GartnerIAM.
About GMO GlobalSign
GlobalSign, founded in 1996, is a provider of identity services for the Internet of Everything (IoE), mediating trust to enable safe commerce, communications, content delivery and community interactions for billions of online transactions occurring around the world at every moment. Its identity and access management portfolio includes access control, single sign-on (SSO), federation and delegation services to help organizations and service providers create new business models for customer and partner interactions. GlobalSign's core digital certificate solutions allow its thousands of authenticated customers to conduct SSL secured transactions, data transfer, distribution of tamper-proof code, and protection of online identities for secure email and access control. GlobalSign's solutions are designed to address the massive scalability demanded by the emerging $14.4 trillion IoE market, where the ability to make secure networked connections among people, processes, data and things, will require that every "thing" have a trusted identity that can be managed. The company has offices in the U.S., Europe and throughout Asia. For the latest news on GlobalSign, visit www.globalsign.com/en/ or follow GlobalSign on Twitter (@globalsign ).
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About GMO Internet Group
GMO Internet Group is an Internet services industry leader, developing and operating Japan's most widely used domain, hosting & cloud, ecommerce, security, and payment solutions. The Group also comprises the world's largest online FX trading platform, as well as online advertising, Internet media, and mobile entertainment products. GMO Internet, Inc. (