IT Leaders, Employees Divided on Data Security

Management and employees have dramatically different views of how risky employee behavior can be. According to the results of a new security survey released today, that gap puts enterprise data in grave danger.

The survey, conducted by Opinion Matters and sponsored by Egress, includes the views of more than 250 IT leaders and more than 2,000 employees from the US and UK. It found more than three-quarters of the executives believe employees have accidentally put company data at risk in the past year. When employees answered the same question, 92% said they had not done anything to put data at risk.

When it comes to intentional breaches, the division is no less stark. Sixty-one percent of IT leaders said employees have maliciously put company data at risk, while 91% of employees said they've done no such thing. This kind of divide – in which employees are unaware of, or unwilling to admit their roles in, data loss – poses a particular challenge to IT leaders trying to educated their employees about good security practices.

There is more information within the data. For example, more than half (55%) of employees who admitted breaking company rules to share data said their organizations don't provide the tools required to securely share sensitive information. In addition, 29% of employees said they believe they have some form of ownership over data they have worked on as part of their jobs. This echoes another finding, that 20% of those who intentionally shared data did so because they felt that the information was theirs to share.

Read more here.

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