A third of employees would sell your company data for the right price

A recent study undertaken by security company Clearswift has revealed that 35 percent of employees in the UK, Germany, US and Australia were open to selling company data including company patents, financial records and customer credit card details for bribes of upto £50,000 risking both their jobs and criminal convictions.

Alarmingly, 25 percent of the polled employees would consider selling company data for £5,000 and 18 percent for an offer of £1,000. 61 percent of employees stated that they had access to customer data, a dangerously high figure when 22 percent believe that they do not feel security of this data is their responsibility at all.

Even within the information security industry, 62 percent of professionals think employees do not care enough about security to change their behaviours. “While people are generally taking security more seriously there is still a significant group of people who are willing to profit from selling something that doesn’t belong to them” said Heath Davies, Chief Executive Officer at Clearswift. “It is not good business to live in fear of your employees, especially since most can be trusted,” said Davies. “Getting the balance right has always been hard. But truly understanding where the problems come from, combined with advances in technology which can adapt to respond differently to different threats, really changes the game here.”

There are steps you can take to stop your employees accessing private data. One way is to use an effective PCI DSS solution to shield your employees from viewing your consumers’ card details. To download our brochure click here or contact us today here.

Here is the full infographic with the survey results, courtesy of Clearswift: