Cyber Risk on the Inside

While the Sony cyber attack has put the spotlight on sophisticated external attacks, a new report suggests that insiders with too much access to sensitive data are a growing risk as well.

According to the survey conducted by the Ponemon Institute, some 71 percent of employees report that they have access to data they should not see, and more than half say this access is frequent or very frequent.

In the words of Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of The Ponemon Institute:

This research surfaces an important factor that is often overlooked: employees commonly have too much access to data, beyond what they need to do their jobs, and when that access is not tracked or audited, an attack that gains access to employee accounts can have devastating consequences.”

While the focus in recent weeks has been on the risk of external attacks, the Ponemon study finds that data breaches are most likely to be caused by insiders with too much access who are frequently unaware of the risks they present.

Some 50 percent of end users and 74 percent of IT practitioners believe that insider mistakes, negligence or malice are frequently or very frequently the cause of leakage of company data.

And only 47 percent of IT practitioners say employees in their organizations take appropriate steps to protect the company data they access.

In a workplace environment where employees are under pressure to deliver more, faster, cheaper, it’s easy to overlook security risks in the name of efficiency.

Only 22 percent of employees surveyed believe their organizations as a whole place a very high priority on the protection of company data, and less than half believe their companies strictly enforce security policies related to use of and access to company data.

The flip side is that businesses need to be reticent of going to the other extreme, limiting data that their employees or customers need.

Some 43 percent of end users say it takes weeks, months or longer to be granted access to data they request access to in order to do their jobs. And 68 percent say it is difficult or very difficult to share appropriate data or files with business partners such as customers or vendors.

Ponemon interviewed 1,166 IT practitioners and 1,110 end users in organizations ranging in size from dozens to tens of thousands of employees in a range of industries including financial services, public sector, health and pharma, retail, industrial and technology and software.

More on insider threats in this I.I.I. paper on cyber risks.