Employee Departure Creates Gaping Security Hole, Says New Data
Chelmsford, MA (PRWEB) December 23, 2015 -- A new survey from Biscom, the leader of secure communications software, reveals that when employees leave their job, they frequently take and/or share sensitive company data, and that enterprises are not prepared to prevent this from happening.
The survey measured the behaviors of entry level to senior level employees in eight different industries including healthcare, technology and retail. Results exposed the likelihood of employees taking company data, the type of data taken, and the reasons for this theft.
Key findings:
● More than 1 in 4 respondents say they took data when leaving a company.
● 15% of respondents said they are more likely to take company data if they are forced out of their job (fired or laid off), rather than leaving on their own.
● Of those who take company data, 85% report they take material they have created themselves and don’t feel this is wrong.
● While a majority take their own documents, only 25% of respondents report taking data that they did not create.
● 95% of respondents said that this was possible because either their company did not have policies or technology to prevent data stealing, or that if companies did have policies in place, they ignored them.
Survey results also showed that the technology a company implements plays a major role when deciding to take company data. Due to tools such as Dropbox, Google Drive and email, taking files is nearly effortless.
“The survey’s results reveal employees as a big security hole,” said John Lane, CISO of Biscom. “Companies can use this information to understand how they can protect their data. Whether it’s updating employee training, establishing stricter company policies to prevent data theft, or obtaining secure tools to store and track company data.”
Although there are significant security risks that come from stealing data, a majority of survey respondents reported that they didn’t see it that way. Employees believed doing so was not malicious despite taking sensitive information including company strategy documents, customer lists, and financial data. It is likely that data theft is so prevalent among employees because there is no feeling of wrongdoing.
Biscom offers secure fax and file sharing services for highly regulated industries like healthcare, financial services, legal, and the government. Biscom’s latest product, Verosync, provides an easy-to-use secure solution that provides complete control and visibility of file sharing happening both inside and outside an organization.
About Biscom
Every day millions of users and thousands of enterprises rely on Biscom for secure and reliable document delivery solutions. Founded in 1986, Biscom pioneered the fax server marketplace with FAXCOM®. Since then, Biscom has expanded and today provides solutions around secure file transfer, synchronization, file translation, cloud solutions, and mobile devices for the world’s largest organizations. Biscom’s newest product, Verosync, provides a secure file-sharing solution, combining strong administrative features and an intuitive user interface. Learn more about Verosync at http://www.verosync.com, and about Biscom at http://www.biscom.com.
Kristina Kennedy, Kickstand Communications, http://www.meetkickstand.com, +1 512-686-6405, [email protected]
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