Tag: information theft by insiders

Main cause for data breaches in organizations: data theft by „insiders“

11. August 2016

The Ponemon Institute has recently published a study about security gaps and the protection of corporate data. The study was carried within U.S. and European organizations in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The study aims at identifying gaps in organizations that may lead to data breaches.

The study reveals data theft by “insiders” as being the main reason for data breaches within organizations. A vast majority of the participants stated that their organization had suffered from such insider theft over the past two years.

Furthermore, respondents of the IT field confirmed that insider theft is twice more likely to compromise corporate information as any other external attack. Regarding this, the study reveals that data breaches by insiders is increasing due to the fact that employees require wide access rights to perform their job and, therefore, they have access to confidential and sensitive information of their organization.

The report suggests that companies should improve their tracking possibilities, in order to identify access and use of data by its employees and to detect in a shorter timeframe the intents of employees to access information and data which they are not authorized to see.