This security survey - which took in responses from around 600 office workers in London's Canary Wharf and New York's Wall Street - also revealed that 41% of workers had already taken sensitive computer data from their former employers to their new job.
According to Cyber-Ark, the IT security vendor that sponsored the survey, stealing employer's data has become endemic in modern culture with 85% of people admitting they know it is illegal to download corporate information from their employer.
Despite this, the IT security company noted that almost half of respondents to the security survey could not stop themselves taking it with them, with the majority admitting the data could be useful in the future.
The survey also found that 57% of respondents said that it has become a lot easier to take sensitive computer information from under their bosses noses this year - up from 29% last year.
The annual study - entitled The Global Recession and Its Effect on Work Ethics - found that a quarter of workers admitted that the recession had made them feel less loyal towards their employers.
32% of people surveyed revealed that they would do their utmost to take a peek at an office redundancy list to find out if their name was on the schedule.
Commenting to the security survey's results, Mark Fullbrook, UK director of Cyber-Ark, said that, whilst there are glimmers of hope in the UK and US economies, employee confidence has clearly been rocked.
"This survey shows that many workers are willing to do practically anything to ensure their job security or make themselves more marketable - including committing a crime", he said.
"Whilst there is no excuse for employees who are willing to compromise their ethics to save their job, much of the responsibility for protecting sensitive proprietary data is the responsibility of the employer", he added.
"Organisations must be willing to make improvements to how they monitor and control access to databases, networks and systems, even by those privileged users who have legitimate rights.
"Additional protection can be added with simple steps like frequently changing passwords and only granting access to certain information on-demand."
Comments
Marc Hocking CTO Becrypt says:
27 November 2009
Statement from Marc Hocking, CTO, Becrypt
The recent stories surrounding data theft reinforce the need for companies to have a sound Information Assurance strategy. This needs to comprise of effective policy which is reinforced by technology. The correct controls need to be in place from the start – trying to put these in place after an employee has been sacked and stolen data is like bolting the barn door after the horse has bolted. Whenever an organisation hires a new employee, there needs to be education about the data policy, and continual reinforcement of this to ensure that employees are updated on any policy changes. Organisations need to make sure that strategies are in place across the entire employee lifecycle, and ensure that these are effectively communicated, so prevent potentially catastrophic data loss.
Note: The majority of comments posted are created by members of the
public. The views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated are not those
Elsevier Ltd. We are not responsible for any content posted by members of the public
or content of any third party sites that are accessible through this site. Any links
to third party websites from this website do not amount to any endorsement of that
site by the Elsevier Ltd and any use of that site by you is at your own risk. For
further information, please refer to our Terms & Conditions.
Comment on this article
You must be registered and logged in to leave a comment
about this article.