Study Confirms: Employees Are Biggest Data-Security Threat

Sixty-nine percent of organizations said they had been breached due to an insider threat. Symptomatic of how intractable the problem has become: Two thirds of the respondents themselves said they had brought data from former employers to new jobs. The study, conducted by UK-based Sapio Research, queried more than 1500 information security leaders and business executives. One finding, and possibly a key to why this issue remains so pervasive: Most employees feel they own their own work. The upshot seems to be that employers who are concerned about this issue and feel they are in the right – IP loss seems to be the biggest concern – have some work to do. Said the chief information security officer at the Minneapolis data-security company that commissioned the study: “We’re seeing companies empower their employees without the proper security programs in place.”