Insider threat is the ‘weakest link' for businesses

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Six out of 10 organisations have lost data as a result of negligent employees, according to a new survey commissioned by the Ponemon Institute.

Figures from the ‘worldwide state of the endpoint’ report also said that nearly three in 10 companies had experienced theft of sensitive data by workers.

The report said that these figures weren’t surprising, as 76 per cent of employees were able to email data out of the business, and that 70 per cent could download data onto USB sticks without anybody knowing.

“Businesses need to manage multiple security technologies to prevent sensitive data from walking out the door and malware from coming in,” said Andrew Bentley of Lumension, which sponsored the survey, in a statement.

“The dual threat is proving difficult for most organisations, which are struggling with a lack of skills, budgetary constraints, and the growing complexities of endpoint technologies.”

Another survey from Deloitte backed up the Ponemon Institute’s findings. According to its ‘consumer business security study’, businesses did not focus enough on the insider threat.

Managing the insider threat had a low ranking among the top security initiatives for 2009, with only 10 per cent of organisations seeing it as a main priority, even though respondents acknowledged it as an organisation’s weakest link.

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