A new report from identity cloud provider Okta Inc. has found that in the age of growing awareness of security risks, security applications are growing in popularity.

The findings come from Okta’s 2019 Business@Work report released today, which detailed data from more than 5,500 Okta customer app integrations.

In the top three spots for fastest growing apps, KnowBe4, a security training app; LastPass, a password manager; and an app from Proofpoint that helps with cloud-app security. Among Okta customers, KnowBe4 was the fastest growing app, up 178 percent over the last 12 months.

In other findings, the report also found that hybrid information technology environments are gaining traction. Some 16 percent of Okta customers said they were in the process of integrating with networking systems. The most popular provider was cited as Palo Alto Networks Inc., which surpassed Citrix Systems Inc. over the last year.

Keeping with the theme of growing awareness of the risks of cyberattacks, the use of multifactor authentication is reported to be increasingly popular. About 70 percent of Okta corporate users said they were now using between two to four factors for authentication, up from 65 percent last year. Some 71 percent of customers were using Okta Verify, 44 percent have added Google Authenticator and 15 percent were using Yubikey.

The news wasn’t all good. A separate part of the report, based on a survey of 1,200 knowledge workers from companies of various sizes, found that nearly 40 percent recycle the same two to four passwords for almost every account.

Worse still, 26 percent of respondents write down their passwords on a sticky note or piece of paper, 10 percent write it in a note app on their phone and 7 percent have shared their credentials with colleagues.

Photo: Pixabay