The best IT security policies are only effective if employees abide by them, and these days that can be a big “if.” More than half (53%) of employees in a recent international survey said they work around their company’s IT security policies to get work done.
Other findings included:
64% frequently or sometimes send work documents to their personal e-mail address to work on them from home.
One in 10 has lost a laptop, smartphone and/or USB flash drive with corporate information on it. For U.S. employees, only 5% reported such a loss.
43% have switched jobs internally but still have access to accounts and/or resources that they no longer need.
37% have stumbled into an area of their corporate network to which they believe they should not have had access.
15% have held a door open for someone at work whom they did not recognize. Among U.S. employees, almost one in three (31%) has let a stranger into the workplace.
The survey by RSA, the security division of EMC Corp., polled more than 400 attendees at industry conferences in the United States, Mexico and Brazil.
Source: EMC Corp., The 2008 Insider Threat Survey, www.emc.com.