Survey: 40 Percent Of Companies Expect Data Breaches Caused By Employees

eSecurity Planet reported the results of a recent survey of information technology managers and employees. The survey included workers in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia. The key findings:

"... 40 percent of companies expect to experience a data breach resulting from employee behavior in the next 12 months... 75 percent of employees believe their company doesn't give them enough information about data policies... 58 percent don't understand what would actually constitute a security breach... 50 percent of respondents admitted that they disregard their companies' data protection policies in order to get their jobs done."

The phrase "insider data breach" refers to data breaches caused by employees. Companies seem focused on external threats from hackers, while not focusing also upon insider threats. Lax or untrained employees and poor internal processes are often the root causes.

These survey results are not good. The results indicate that companies are not doing everything they can (and should) to protect the sensitive customer, client, employee, and retiree information they have collected.