Member Article

One third of staff would steal data (for a price)

More than a third of workers have said that they would be willing to sell their employer’s secrets to a stranger, and a few would do it for the cost of a good meal.

The question was put to 600 commuters at London railway stations last week. 37% of those questioned were wiling to part with company secrets for the right bribe. Of those who could be corrupted, 63% said they would reveal sensitive data for £1 million; 10% would do it if their mortgage was paid off; 5% would do it for a holiday; 5% would do it for a new job; 4% for getting rid of their credit card debt; and 2% (which equates to about four people) would do it “for a free slap-up meal.”

The survey was conducted by researchers from Infosecurity Europe, an IT security event taking place in London next week. We’re hoping that the results weren’t somehow tailored towards making people scared about IT security. That would be cynical, wouldn’t it?

Two thirds of employees think it is easy to sneak information out of their organisation and 88% of employees thought that the information that they had access to was valuable.

One third said they felt a lot less loyalty to their employers than a year ago, though 5% were more loyal as they felt they had job security.

Tamar Beck, Group Event Director for Infosecurity Europe, said: “It’s down to an organisation to take steps to ensure their most valuable assets are locked down and protected, especially confidential customer data.

“Criminals are very adept at finding the vulnerable workers who can be tempted into betraying their employers, therefore, organisations should ensure that they have trained their people to protect sensitive information and have adequate technology and processes in place to help them enforce security policies that comply with current regulation and legislation.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .