Four in Five IT Managers Believe Employees Deliberately Disobey Security Policies

A study conducted by privileged identity management company Liberman Software reveals that about 80 percent of corporate IT managers believe their company`s employees deliberately ignore security best-practices at work.

The survey, based on the opinions of about 250 security professionals in the corporate sector, also show that more than half of the same end-users would not care much even if these security policies came directly from the company`s CEO.

“These figures highlight the fact that most end-users are still not taking IT security seriously and are unnecessarily putting corporate data ” and potentially customer information ” at risk,” said CEO Philip Lieberman, as quoted in the press release.

It`s no wonder that corporate employees try to circumvent security protocols at the work place, especially as corporate IT environments are highly restrictive: most companies block access to social networking sites, instant messaging or other forms of communication that are unnecessary to the job.

Although corporate employees are the primary offenders in these cases, part of the responsibility resides with the IT departments themselves. Most company employees do not receive proper IT security orientation courses and are unaware of the dangers of circumventing these policies.

Bottom line: If you don`t want your employees to ignore security policies, don`t rely on good faith and trust, but rather enforce them. If you want your employee to avoid using removable media on company computers, why not disable them?