More Variables Than Technology for Enterprise Security to Consider
June 29, 2016
For all the effort enterprises go to in securing data through technological solutions, there are also other variables to consider: employees. Business Insider released an article, 1 in 5 employees are willing to hand over their work passwords for money, that shares survey research from SailPoint. 20 percent of 1,000 respondents, from organizations with over 1,000 employees, would be willing to sell their work passwords. US employees win the “most likely” award with 27 percent followed by Netherlands with 20 percent, and then UK and France at 16 percent. The article tells us,
“Some employees were willing to sell their passwords for as little as $55 (£38) but most people wanted considerably more, with $82,000 (£56,000) being the global average amount required,according to figures cited by Quartz that weren’t in the report. Unauthorised access to a company’s internal systems could provide a treasure trove of valuable data for criminals. They may be targeting individual user accounts, or they could be after intellectual property, or corporate strategy data.”
Undoubtedly, search and/or cybertheft is easier with a password. While the survey reports findings that may be alarming to organizations, we are left with the question, ‘why’. It may be easy to say morality is the dividing line, but I think this article wrestling with the morality question is on the right track pointing to considering sociological implications, for example, employee engagement and satisfaction cannot be discounted as factors in a decision to sell a password.
Megan Feil, June 29, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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