Widespread Employee Snooping Threatens Companies
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Widespread Employee Snooping Threatens Companies
Employees who snoop through the company network, especially IT executives with seniority, are putting their companies at risk. -
Global Employee Snooping
92% of respondents reported that employees try to access information they do not need for their day-to-day work. -
Frequent Employee Access Attempts
23% of respondents said employees frequently attempt to access information that is irrelevant to their daily job functions. -
IT Security Professionals Are the Worst Snoopers
66% of IT professionals said that they have sought out or accessed company information they did not need. -
Ferreting Out Company Performance
36% of IT pros admitted to looking for or accessing sensitive information about their company's performance that is not necessary for them to do their jobs. -
The Worst Snoopers Have Seniority
71% of IT security executives admitted to seeking extraneous information, compared to 56% of non-manager-level IT security team members. -
Comparative Snooping Regarding Company Performance
49% of executives admitted to snooping for sensitive company performance information, compared to 17% of non-manager team members. -
Smaller Companies Have a Bigger Snooping Problem
38% of respondents at companies with 500 to 2,000 employees looked for or accessed sensitive performance data. -
Fewer Snoopers at Larger Companies
29% of professionals at companies with over 5,000 employees admitted to looking for or accessing sensitive performance data. -
Technology Companies Most at Risk
44% of respondents at high-tech companies searched for sensitive company performance information. -
Snooping in Other Sectors
36% of respondents in financial services, 31% in manufacturing, and 21% in health care have searched for sensitive company performance information. -
How to Curtail Snoopers
Role-based access control and strict governance of rights and permissions can help prevent employees from accessing confidential or sensitive information. -
How to Curtail IT Snoopers with Seniority
Leverage identity intelligence and effective privilege access management to identify who has elevated rights and easily put controls around unauthorized access behavior.
Employees are snooping for unpermitted information on their company's corporate network, underscoring the need for identity and access management and putting organizations at risk, a new study finds. IT executives with seniority are the worst offenders. Because companies are not adhering to best practices regarding user access control and governance, employees may move through the enterprise to access and even share sensitive information that they do not need to do their jobs. "While insider threats tend to be non-malicious in intent, our research depicts a widespread, intrusive meddling from employees when it comes to information that falls outside their responsibility," said Jon Milburn, president and general manager of OneIdentity, "If that information winds up in the wrong hands, corporate data loss, customer data exposure or compliance violations or possible risks can result in irreversible damage to the business's reputation or financial standing." OneIdentity commissioned Dimensional Research to survey 913 IT security professionals worldwide, who completed an online survey late last summer.