Survey: Employees Ignore, Evade Network Security Policies

  • Jun 26, 2009

There is a general lack of awareness and enforcement of security policies and procedures in companies today, according to new research announced by privacy and information management research firm, Ponemon Institute.

The report, Trends in Insider Compliance with Data Security Policies: Employees Evade and Ignore Security Policies, was sponsored by IronKey, maker of the world's most secure flash drive, and examines the challenges facing IT professionals in securing confidential data.

Facts/Highlights:

  • The majority of respondents admit to serious non-compliant workplace behaviors that place their companies at risk. Such behaviors include the insecure use of USB memory sticks, use of Web-based email, sharing passwords, turning off security settings and more.
  • According to the study, 69 percent of employees surveyed said that they copy confidential or sensitive business information onto USB devices, while only 13 percent of respondents said their companies have a policy that allows this, showing a 48 percent non-compliance rate.
  • 61 percent admitted to copying confidential or sensitive business information onto USB devices, and then transferring the information to another computer that is not part of the corporate network.
  • Over half of the respondents said that they download personal Internet software to their company computers, which significantly increases the risk of introducing viruses, worms and other malware into an organization's network.
  • 58 percent of the respondents said that their companies do not provide adequate training about compliance with data security policies, and about the same number said the data security policies are ineffective.
  • Approximately half of the survey participants said their corporate data security policies are largely ignored by employees and management, and that the policies are too complex to understand.
  • Compared with a similar study conducted by Ponemon Institute in 2007, the rate of non-compliant employee behavior appears to be getting worse over time.

The full study can be found at https://www.ironkey.com/ponemon.

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