“Firstly, people may have both personal devices and work devices but device management or policy from the IT team might mean each device is equally able to access corporate resources, or there is no such policy, so employees would just use whichever is most convenient,” Lohokare said. “The second big reason would be the continued Bring Your Own Device phenomenon exacerbated by the move to hybrid working, where desktop computers in use when employees are in the workplace are supplemented or replaced by portable devices used by employees that are far more mobile in terms of how and where they perform their role.”

More than two-thirds (68%) of respondents admitted to using the same password for both workplace and personal applications. Another 59% save workplace logins and passwords in the web browser used to perform their job.

“Unless firms are providing another way of doing this (e.g., password management, SSO), it’s too easy for an employee to click to save that information,” Sampson reasoned for 59% saving the login credentials in the browser.

Additionally, despite 92% of respondents having MFA or other safe browsing policies implemented in their respective administrations, 68% said they needed to violate such policies to get their job done.

“Many insecure workarounds that users adopt stem from a greater need for efficiency and convenience,” Lohokare added. “Workers may take shortcuts that allow them to be more productive because they feel that they cannot accomplish their tasks without doing so.”

Cyberark’s new secure browser

Cyberark has made a new identity-centric secure browser publicly available through its CyberArk Identity Security Platform, to tackle browser-related security risks.