Insider threat grows for UK businesses

A survey by YouGov for Microsoft found that UK businesses face a serious security threat from inside their own walls.

Nearly a quarter (22%) of UK employees admitted to having illegally accessed sensitive internal information such as salary details on their employer’s IT systems and over half (54%) would do so, given the opportunity.

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The study highlights the challenge facing IT, HR and finance departments in protecting confidential information from non-authorised employees. When asked what type of information would tempt them most, respondents said that HR and payroll information was the most popular target (36%), followed by their manager’s personal notes (28%) and their colleagues’ personal notes (25%). If an opportunity presented itself, 6% said they would steal a colleague’s password.

Despite all the attention paid to preventing external attacks, as all IT security people know, the real threats exist inside the organisation. And the defence against them is effective – and policed - policies and procedures.