Security Featured Article

A substantial number of employees recently surveyed by SailPoint, a risk-management software provider, admitted to potentially “abusing” private data from their employer.

Specifically, 22 percent of those in the U.S., 29 percent in Australia, and 48 percent in Great Britain, admitted that they would do something with the data, whether it was accidental or intentional.

Breaking it down further, 10 percent in the U.S., 12 percent in Australia, and 27 percent in Great Britain said they would forward electronic files to a non-employee, while 9 percent of Americans, 8 percent of Australians, and 24 percent of Britons said they would copy electronic files to take with them when they leave a company.

Even more disturbing, 5 percent of those in the U.S., 4 percent in Australia, and 24 percent in Great Britain admitted they would be comfortable selling such corporate data to a third-party.

Conducted by Harris Interactive (News - Alert) for SailPoint, the survey of 3,484 employees in the U.S., Great Britain and Australia found that the results point to an alarming number of employees exposing their companies to internal theft and sabotage.

“Organizations should be very concerned about the number of employees that openly admitted to misusing proprietary data,” said Jackie Gilbert, vice president of marketing and cofounder at SailPoint. “These results show that insider threats represent a significant risk to the business. Some of the biggest and most costly data breaches have been directly tied to company employees.”

The survey also asked employees about accessing corporate files via mobile devices. Here, 15 percent of Americans, 29 percent of Britons, and 18 percent of Australians said they use mobile devices to access corporate data via private Intranets or portals. That type of access raises alarm bells in SailPoint’s opinion.

“Mobile devices can make it easier for a disgruntled employee to do a significant amount of damage,” said Gilbert. “If an employee has just been fired, it’s no longer sufficient to turn off email and confiscate their laptop. A disgruntled employee can do a lot of damage from a mobile device before he or she even reaches the elevator.”

As a provider of risk-management software, SailPoint naturally has a vested interest in the results of the poll. But the findings do still underscore the need for management and IT staffers to ensure that proprietary and confidential corporate data is properly secured and protected, not just from outsiders but from insiders and former insiders as well.

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