Channel Survey Says Clients Attacked Mostly Through Privileged Accounts

Privileged access has emerged as a key vulnerability as channel partners deliver solutions to keep customer data secure. That’s according to Thycotic, a Washington, DC-based provider of privileged account management (PAM) solutions.

According to the company’s 2018 Global Channel Partner Survey Report, 74 percent of solution provider clients have suffered a breach in the past 12 months. Among those experiencing a breach, 55 percent did not act to fully remediate the cause of the breach and nearly one in five clients (18 percent) did not seek any remediation to prevent a breach from recurring. Additionally, 62 percent of solution providers said that cyberattacks were specifically targeting their clients’ privileged accounts seeking to exploit credential vulnerabilities.

“The survey suggests channel partners need to help educate their clients about the risks associated with privileged credentials,” said Charlie Patsios, channel marketing director, at Thycotic. “We are seeing a growing number of solution providers expanding their cybersecurity services around PAM protection.”

More than 90 percent of respondents stated only half of their clients currently have a PAM solution in place to protect privileged accounts and among the balance of respondents, only one in ten of their clients have a PAM solution.

The report lists ransomware and phishing threats as the most significant risks among their clients by solution providers with 44 percent of clients indicating ransomware as their most common breach, followed by 31 percent for phishing attacks.

The channel survey, which focused on cybersecurity, included responses from more than 250 value-added resellers (VARs), managed service providers (MSPs), value added distributors (VADs), direct market resellers and system integrators.

Channel Impact^®
Privileged access management tools have emerged as a key component to effective cybersecurity, especially as clients become more aware of public breaches leveraging privileged accounts.