Identity Theft News

Survey: 35 percent of IT staff snoop on privileged data

Thursday, June 11, 2009

A recent survey of IT security staff has found that 35 percent admit to having snooped on sensitive insider information such as HR records, customer databases and merger and acquisition plans, according to security vendor Cyber-Ark.

The survey of 400 IT administrators and staff in the U.S. and UK also found 74 percent who said they could get around security controls to prevent access to internal information and data theft. Asked what they would take if they were fired by their company, 47 percent said they would take M&A plans, as opposed to 7 percent who said so in the 2008 survey.

One in five companies in the survey admitted to cases of insider sabotage or IT security fraud, 36 percent of which said they suspect their competitors received sensitive information or intellectual property as a result.

According to a report from the Carnegie Mellon Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT), insider threats extend beyond the organization itself - half of insiders who stole or modified information for financial gain were recruited by outsiders, including by business partners or organizations looking to acquire the insider's company.

The 2007 E-Crime Watch Survey conducted by the U.S. Secret Service and the CERT Coordination Center found that, in cases where respondents could identify the perpetrator of an electronic crime, 31 percent were committed by insiders.