1 in 5 workers going rogue with corporate data

One in five employees have uploaded proprietary corporate data to a cloud storage application with the specific goal of sharing it outside the organisation, according to new research from SailPoint.

A survey conducted by the company shows that companies are failing to employ existing IT controls to cloud usage, with 66% of users able to access cloud storage applications after leaving their last job.

One in four respondents admitted that they would take copies of corporate data with them when leaving a company, even though 60% are aware that their employee forbids this.

The survey of office workers in countries including Australia shows that only 28% of corporate policies pay close attention to who is granted access to mission-critical SaaS apps.

Australian employees are more careful than their peers in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and the US, with only 11% of Australian respondents having uploaded a sensitive document to share outside their companies.

But Australia also ranked equal lowest in terms of employees who are aware that cloud policies pay close attention to who is granted access to mission-critical data over cloud applications, at 24%.

“The survey results are an eye-opener of how cloud applications have made it easy for employees to take information with them when they leave a company,” Sailpoint founder and President Kevin Cunningham said.

“With almost 20% of employees purchasing a cloud application for work without involving the IT departments, combined with the ability for employees to use consumer cloud apps for work activities, it’s virtually impossible to manage access to applications and the sharing of mission-critical data.”

Image courtesy of Ian Lamont under CC