Cybercrime: IT workers are actually the office’s worst offenders when it comes to IT security
How’s this for ironic:it turns out the office’s tech-savvy IT workers are actually the greatest offenders when it comes to scrimping on IT security.
In its annual Insider Risk Report 2015, Intermedia has analysed online security habits of over 2,000 UK and US employees. The report found that, well, pretty much all of us have little to no clue as to what we should be doing.
Some 93 per cent of those surveyed admitted to having “insecure” IT habits.
But despite having the most access to company data, and being the very people assigned to protect it against cyber attacks, the IT team came out as the most likely to have all-too-lax security habits, compared to any other employees.
Read more: Cyber security: How to build a secure company from the inside out
“It’s nearly always the case that technical people are the worst offenders,” Richard Walters, Intermedia’s vice president of identity and access management.
One in three devil-may-care IT workers have handed out their passwords to other employees – and worse, almost as many said they would take data from their company if it could benefit them.
But on the bright side, UK businesses have stepped up their game recently in the fight against cybercrime, as over one in six new IT jobs created are in the cyber security field.
This is not a moment too soon, perhaps, as recent figures estimate that cybercrime is costing global business over £200bn per year.