Security concerns over convergence of personal and workplace identities are on increase, as‎ identity theft accounts for 64% of all data breaches across the globe.

In the latest report by Gemalto, it is revealed that consumer service breaches continue to rise, resulting in almost nine in ten (89%) enterprises addressing their access management security policies.

According to the report, 90% of IT professionals are concerned about employees using their personal credentials for work purposes, even as 62% of enterprises feel increasing pressure to match consumer authentication methods in the workplace.

The use of two-factor authentication is on the rise, with 40% of organizations’ employees using it.

Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, released the findings of its “Authentication and Identity Management Index”, which revealed that 90% of enterprise IT professionals are concerned that employee reuse of personal credentials for work purposes could compromise security.

However, with two thirds (68%) saying they would be comfortable allowing employees to use their social media credentials on company resources, Gemalto’s research suggests that personal applications (such as email) are the biggest worry to organizations.

The enterprise and consumer worlds are merging closer together, with enterprise security teams under increasing pressure to implement the same type of authentication methods typically seen in consumer services, such as fingerprint scanning and iris recognition.

Thus, Gemalto study shows six in ten (62%) believed this was the case, with a similar amount (63%) revealing they feel security methods designed for consumers provide sufficient protection for enterprises.

In fact, over half of respondents (52%) believe it will be just three years before these methods merge completely.

Employee expectations around usability and mobility are affecting how enterprises approach authentication and access management.

Nearly half of respondents stated that they are increasing resources and spending on access management.

Deployment rates are also increasing:  62% expect to implement strong authentication in two years’ time – up from 51% of respondents who said the same thing last year, and nearly 40% responded they will implement Cloud SSO or IDaaS within the next two years.

Enterprises are clearly seeing the benefits, with over nine in ten (94%) using two-factor authentication to protect at least one application and nearly all respondents (96%) expecting to use it at some point in the future.

Mobility security still a challenge, says the report. As more enterprises become mobile, the challenges in protecting resources while increasing flexibility for employees working on the move increases.

Despite an increasing amount of businesses enabling mobile working, a third (35%) completely restricted employees from accessing company resources via mobile devices and nine in ten (91%) are at least part-restricting access to resources.

This is backed up as half of businesses (50%) admit security is one of their biggest concerns to increasing user mobility.

In order to protect themselves against threats from increased mobility, enterprises are still most likely to be using usernames and passwords – two thirds of users at respondents’ organizations are using this authentication method, on average.

Currently, 37% of users at respondents’ organizations are required to use two-factor authentication to access corporate resources from mobile devices, on average. However, like the rise for access while in the office, on average, respondents believe this will increase to over half (56%) in two years’ time.

“From credential sharing to authentication practices, it’s clear that consumer trends are having a big impact on enterprise security,” said François Lasnier, Senior Vice President, Identity Protection at Gemalto. “But businesses need to make sure their data isn’t compromised by bad personal habits. It’s encouraging to see deployment of two-factor authentication methods on the rise, and increased awareness for cloud access management, as these are the most effective solutions for businesses to secure cloud resources and protect against internal and external threats. For IT leaders, it’s important that they keep pushing for security to be a priority at the board level, and ensure that it’s front of mind for everyone in an organization.”‎

‎Reacting to the report, Mr. Olufemi Ake, country manager, ESET West Africa told Nigeria CommunicationsWeek confirmed that the ‎uptake of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)‎ in the region is one of the primary factors leading to breaches.

Ake said in a telephone interview “In fact, this report is factual based on our experiences with clients in this region. In as much as BYOD offers organizations flexibility in workplace, it is also creating challenges, especially when the device was not checked for malicious content right from the beginning.

“Employees now access and process company data even from home, most times, using personal emails. It is difficult to manage, unless you mandate them, right from the time of recruitment, on how company data must not be used.

“This has given rise to security solutions like Safetica which helps to monitor devices; how files are moved from the computer, uses or reused and for what purpose”.

He added that the report implies ‎companies must not relent with regards IT security in the coming year and moving forward.