One-third of office workers in London and New York have stolen their employers' confidential computer data to see if they are on a redundancy list, a new survey has revealed.

The Cyber-Ark survey questioned around 600 office workers in London's Canary Wharf and New York's Wall Street. Forty-one percent of those surveyed also admitted they had already taken sensitive data from their former employer to their new job.

Eighty-five percent said they knew it was illegal to download corporate information from their employer. Another twenty-six percent also revealed they would be prepared to take information to help a friend or family member with a job application.

But almost half of the respondents said that despite knowing they were in the wrong, they could not stop themselves indulging in computer data theft. Fifty-seven percent also said it had become easier to take sensitive information in the last year.

Data Security Regulations

Mark Fullbrook from the UK branch of Cyber-Ark said that the survey's results showed data security regulations were under threat because of uncertainty over their job security due to the recession.

He said: "Many workers are willing to do practically anything to ensure their job security or make themselves more marketable - including committing a crime."

"Whilst there is no excuse for employees who are willing to compromise their ethics to save their job, much of the responsibility for protecting sensitive proprietary data is the responsibility of the employer," he added.

Network Security Tools

Fullbrook said that organisations "must be willing to make improvements to how they monitor and access" data.

He explained that network security tools such as regularly changing passwords and creating different clearance levels to access confidential data were effective ways to protect information.

Source - Security International's UK Correspondent

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