Would you steal sensitive data from your employer if the price was right? According to a new survey conducted in the financial heart of London by Infosecurity Europe reveals that 37 percent of those asked would do just that. While 63 percent remain honest, the cost of corrupting the remainder is not cheap. Researchers attempted to measure just how much of a temptation would need to be on the table to get workers to download and hand over the data, proposing incentives ranging from a good meal to £10 million cash.
Of those who were prepared to entertain the theft, 63 percent would need at least £1 million in order to go through with it. A further 10 percent would do the dastardly deed in return for their mortgage being paid off, while 5 percent just wanted a decent holiday thanks very much.
Worryingly, for 4 percent it would only need their credit card bill to be paid off and 2 percent just wanted a slap up meal. Interestingly, 5 percent said they would do it in exchange for a new job, although I'm not sure they thought that one through given that they would have just proved themselves to be totally untrustworthy anyway.
Most telling was the fact that 63 percent of those asked said it would be easy get that data out of their company, this despite 88 percent admitting that the data they had access to was indeed valuable.
"Although it is encouraging to see that not everyone has a price and that you can't buy everyone. Even in the current downturn British workers are still basically very honest, but this cannot be relied upon by organisations to protect valuable company information and confidential customer data", said According to Tamar Beck, Group Event Director, Infosecurity Europe. "Criminals are very adept at finding the vulnerable workers who can be tempted into betraying their employers, therefore, Organisations should ensure that they have trained their people to protect sensitive information and have adequate technology and processes in place to help them enforce security policies that comply with current regulation and legislation."