In a survey of first, second and third line support managers in more than 100 organisations, researchers found that 5% of respondents said that the issue of password resets places a huge drain on resources.
Marlon Bowser, HTK's CEO, said that, based on his previous discussions with CIOs – who typically didn't perceive password resets as a problem – he and his team decided to survey the IT support professionals who are dealing with password resets on a daily basis.
"The results throw up an interesting disparity in perceptions between a company's CIO and IT support staff, with those working on the ground reporting that password-related activity takes up valuable time and resources", he explained.
According to Bowser, the results show that 82% of organisations require their users to change their passwords quarterly or more frequently.
Despite this – and various analyst reports that put the average cost to the help desk per manual password reset at anything between £30 and £50 – researchers also discovered that 79.5% of companies still do not have an automated password reset service.
Bowser notes that, whilst there are web-based options for password resets, 67.5% of respondents expressed reservations about these solutions because they were either not secure enough, too complicated or because users would need internet access – which, of course, they would not have as they did not have a password.
So what’s the solution?
HTK says that 65% of respondents noted that, if it is reliably deployed, biometrics or voice print technology would probably or definitely play an increasing role in IT security.
Interestingly, in those organisations with a 1,000+ user base, all of the respondents to the survey said they felt that password resets cause IT support a problem, with more than 10% saying that they caused a huge drain on resources.