UK workers feel that their data is more secure in the workplace than at home, but one in ten is unaware if there is even an IT department at work.
According to the survey of 2,000 employees by Varonis, 42 per cent feel that the data they handle is more secure at work, while 21 per cent said it was more secure at home.
54 per cent of UK respondents felt that their data is two times more secure at work if they have an IT department, compared to 21 per cent if they do not have a team in the building.
Dietrich Benjes, vice president of UK and Ireland at Varonis, said that as companies continue to expand, it is quite possible that not all employees in an organisation are informed about all of the resources available to them.
“To our surprise, ten per cent of those surveyed said they were unaware that they have an IT department, which could be attributed to a lack of internal communication within an organisation,” he said.
“As end user technical skills vary widely from person to person, this raises questions about not just security awareness and practices, but also about how efficient and productive these users are in today’s data driven organisations.”
Asked why 79 per cent see their home environment is not being secure, Benjes said: “What’s disturbing is that the same percentage of people that think their data is secure at home, think their data is secure at work – even though they have no IT department. It leads one to wonder whether 1 in 5 people think that data just takes care of itself.
“This naivety is likely to have an impact on breaches and data leakages at both home and at work, especially with the growing trend of working remotely. When employees ‘make it up’, it not only introduces risk, but it also impairs productivity and increases waste – using work email to transfer documents back and forth wastes storage, and creates multiple copies that are hard to track, and hard to find later.”
The survey also found that UK workers find it easier to share files at work (49 per cent), compared to 27 per cent who found it easier at home, when an IT department is present.
TK Keanini, CTO of Lancope, said: “In a 24 hour period, an employee will connect to home networks, work network, public network, service provider networks while in flight and in hotels. In all cases, the computing device and data must remain secure.
“Terms like ‘work’ and ‘home’ are as confusing these days as ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ as technology, how we work, and how we are being attacked are all changing year over year. In this day and age, it is best to have a default policy as everything is untrusted until evidence can be produced to proclaim it secure. Having a high level of operational visibility on your computers and network that can back an assertion of secure or insecure is the only strategy work pursuing.”
