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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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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.

The Latest

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...

An overwhelming majority of IT leaders (95%) believe the upcoming wave of AI-powered digital transformation is set to be the most impactful and intensive seen thus far, according to The Science of Productivity: AI, Adoption, And Employee Experience, a new report from Nexthink ...

Overall outage frequency and the general level of reported severity continue to decline, according to the Outage Analysis 2025 from Uptime Institute. However, cyber security incidents are on the rise and often have severe, lasting impacts ...