Only 13% of Security Professionals Say User Experience Is Mission-Critical

When employees encounter tech friction or feel frustrated with the tools they are asked to use, they will find a workaround. In fact, one in two office workers admit to using personal devices to log into work networks, with 32% of them revealing their employers are unaware of this practice, according to Securing the Digital Employee Experience, a report from Ivanti.

Yet, just 13% of security professionals say user experience (UX) for end users is a mission-critical priority when adopting cybersecurity tech interventions. By focusing on UX in security measures, organizations can minimize the likelihood of employees bypassing established protocols and resorting to unsafe workarounds.

"Although harmless in the moment, employees typically opt for convenience and put security on the back burner," said Mike Riemer, Field CISO, Ivanti. "Companies should take steps to understand their employees' workplace behaviors and adopt security measures that reduce the temptation for employees to sidestep protocols and use unsafe workarounds. Strong security shouldn't come at the cost of user experience, as it is integral to maintaining both security and productivity."

Key findings from the report include the following:

With the rise of Gen AI, poor security hygiene will increase

When employees have unfettered access to Gen AI tools and other advanced technologies, it can introduce challenges with data privacy, compliance, cyber risks, and copyrighted materials. Ivanti's research shows that 81% of office workers report they have not been trained on Gen AI and 15% are using unsanctioned tools.

Companies aren't providing secure tools for in-office, remote and hybrid work

Whether half of your employees work remotely or just a small fraction do, there is still a profound need to ensure that the company supports all the ways employees work. Only 62% use a VPN or a zero-trust access solution to restrict network access and protect sensitive information, and only 57% use multi-factor authentication.

Security leaders are often excluded from DEX investment decisions

Digital employee experience (DEX)-informed security minimizes the need for employees to change their typical behaviors at work. Yet, only 38% of companies consult the CISO for input on DEX strategy, investments, and planning, despite the significant contributions DEX tools can make to security.

Methodology: Ivanti surveyed over 20,000 IT professionals, executive leaders, office workers and security professionals around the world to understand what organizations are doing to enable positive digital employee experience (DEX) and any barriers organizations face to deliver frictionless experiences.

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Only 13% of Security Professionals Say User Experience Is Mission-Critical

When employees encounter tech friction or feel frustrated with the tools they are asked to use, they will find a workaround. In fact, one in two office workers admit to using personal devices to log into work networks, with 32% of them revealing their employers are unaware of this practice, according to Securing the Digital Employee Experience, a report from Ivanti.

Yet, just 13% of security professionals say user experience (UX) for end users is a mission-critical priority when adopting cybersecurity tech interventions. By focusing on UX in security measures, organizations can minimize the likelihood of employees bypassing established protocols and resorting to unsafe workarounds.

"Although harmless in the moment, employees typically opt for convenience and put security on the back burner," said Mike Riemer, Field CISO, Ivanti. "Companies should take steps to understand their employees' workplace behaviors and adopt security measures that reduce the temptation for employees to sidestep protocols and use unsafe workarounds. Strong security shouldn't come at the cost of user experience, as it is integral to maintaining both security and productivity."

Key findings from the report include the following:

With the rise of Gen AI, poor security hygiene will increase

When employees have unfettered access to Gen AI tools and other advanced technologies, it can introduce challenges with data privacy, compliance, cyber risks, and copyrighted materials. Ivanti's research shows that 81% of office workers report they have not been trained on Gen AI and 15% are using unsanctioned tools.

Companies aren't providing secure tools for in-office, remote and hybrid work

Whether half of your employees work remotely or just a small fraction do, there is still a profound need to ensure that the company supports all the ways employees work. Only 62% use a VPN or a zero-trust access solution to restrict network access and protect sensitive information, and only 57% use multi-factor authentication.

Security leaders are often excluded from DEX investment decisions

Digital employee experience (DEX)-informed security minimizes the need for employees to change their typical behaviors at work. Yet, only 38% of companies consult the CISO for input on DEX strategy, investments, and planning, despite the significant contributions DEX tools can make to security.

Methodology: Ivanti surveyed over 20,000 IT professionals, executive leaders, office workers and security professionals around the world to understand what organizations are doing to enable positive digital employee experience (DEX) and any barriers organizations face to deliver frictionless experiences.

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Enterprises today operate in a real-time environment where uninterrupted access to trusted data has become a baseline expectation for users, applications and automated systems. Traditional DataOps models, built on manual effort and human triage, cannot keep pace with this always active demand. AI agents are emerging as the operational backbone, ensuring consistent data availability, reinforcing trustworthiness and enabling a level of scale that manual processes cannot achieve ...

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For decades, trust in the digital workplace rested on familiar signals. We trusted faces on video calls, voices on the phone, and emails that appeared to come from people we knew. These cues felt human and intuitive. They anchored how decisions were made, approvals were granted, and access was authorized. AI-powered deepfakes have quietly broken that model ...

Nine in Ten Enterprises Plan Cloud Data Repatriation amid Rising Cloud Costs and Data Sovereignty Mandates

Cloud migration was supposed to be a one-way door. For most enterprises, it turns out it isn't. Cloud data repatriation is a real and growing trend. A new survey ... finds that 89% of organizations plan to expand their on-premises infrastructure footprint over the next two years — and 75% have already moved at least some workloads back from public cloud in the past 24 months. The findings point to a broad rethinking of where data belongs ...

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