14 DAY TRIAL // According to a yearly report detailing the state of password security in over 43,000 companies which use LastPass as the password manager for their business, 45% of them also use a multi-factor authentication solution.
LastPass' report introduces two security benchmark score dubbed as Password Strength Score and Security Score which factor in password complexity, strength, reuse, the number of breached sites its employees are registered on, the number of weak passwords, and more to see how strong a business' passwords are and how well they are protected.
To do that LastPass used the LastPass Security Challenge, an inbuilt password auditing feature of their password manager, and it got the data it needed from over 43,000 organizations.
According to the report, the average Security Score for all businesses using LastPass is 52, a fair score according to LastPass' classification which assigns Poor to ratings from 0 to 39, Fair for 40 to 64, Good for scores between 65 and 89, and Exceptional to those scoring 90 to 100.
The average Security Score of 52 reveals that a lot of the companies using LastPass still need to worry about reused, weak, old and possibly compromised passwords in data breaches.
Multi-factor authentication is adopted by 41% of small companies and only 3% of all companies with more than 10,000 employees
Furthermore, when it comes to industries which approach password security the right way, LastPass found out that companies activating in the Technology/Software field are the ones with the best Average Security Scores of 53, while heavily regulated industries like Banking, Insurance, Health, and Government are trailing behind with scores of 49 and less.
Regarding multi-factor authentication (MFA) adoption trends, 45% of all companies scrutinized use it to prevent unauthorized parties from accessing their systems.
Although not very impressive at first sight, the score had dramatically improved since last years report when only 24,5% of all companies considered MFA as something worth considering.
The highest MFA adoption rate of 41% has been observed in small companies of 25 or fewer employees, while organizations with over 10,000 employees only reached a score of 3%.