Here’s depressing news for all those who thought our corporate data was safe. It isn’t.
And one of the biggest threats is coming from the inside.
LogRhythm, a cyber threat defense firm, surveyed some 2,000 employees and found that 23% admitted to having looked at or taken confidential data from their workplace, with one in ten stating that they do it regularly.
Think about those numbers for a second. Out of 2,000 employees, some 460 said they had looked at or taken confidential data and 200 said they did so on a regular basis.
The most accessed confidential data related to details of colleague salaries (38%) and details of colleague bonus schemes (23%).
“An astonishing 94 percent of those who had accessed confidential information or stolen company data had never been caught,” LogRhythm said.
On one level, I suppose, we shouldn’t find this surprising.
After all, three quarters of the people surveyed said their company had no enforceable systems in place to prevent unauthorized access to company data by employees. In addition, six in ten firms do not regularly change passwords to stop ex-employees from being able to access sites or documents.
In what may qualify as the understatement of 2013, Ross Brewer, vice president and managing director for international markets at LogRhythm said: “There is a clear gap between businesses’ internal security procedures and the harsh reality of employee behavior.”
So, how safe is your data?
Are you sure?
Originally published on Forbes.com
