Survey: 1 in 5 Workers Would Steal Company Information

That's not a valid work email account. Please enter your work email (e.g. you@yourcompany.com)
Please enter your work email
(e.g. you@yourcompany.com)

news block letters According to a survey from Courion, the leading defender against enterprise information access threats, nearly 1 in 5 (19%) of people who work in an office setting age 18-34 would steal company information like customer data, price lists or product plans with if the workers knew they were about to be terminated. Another 16 percent of those who work in an office setting and have ever changed jobs reported to being able to use old user IDs and passwords to access a former employer’s computing systems.

“Too often, companies have no real idea who is accessing what and when,” Christopher Zannetos, president and CEO of Courion, said. “And if you think of how many employees flow through a large organization, you’re looking at significant risk. Add partners, customers and others with whom you share critical business information, and the exposure is massive.”

The findings come from an online survey of more than 2,000 adults conducted by Harris Interactive. Courion said they “spotlight the risk that lurks in every enterprise and the need for organizations to know, at any instant, who is accessing which business information. Failure to possess this intelligence can leave an organization vulnerable and result in lasting, even catastrophic, damage. Damaging security breaches typically take only minutes to perpetrate but often months to discover, and the impact can be devastating.”

According to the company, the root problem of workers accessing information and ethics is that companies are usually overwhelmed by the volume of computing activity taking place as:

  •  new employees come on board;
  •  employees are promoted, transferred or terminated;
  •  new applications come online;
  •  electronic identities are created;
  •  access rights are granted (sometimes in excess of roles);
  •  mobile, cloud and social computing trends continue to change the computing landscape; and
  • similar pressures mount to open computing systems to customers and partners.

By Shala Marks