One in Three Employees Would Sell All Company Secrets for the Right Price

Some 35 percent of employees would sell information on company patents, financial records and customer credit card details for the right price, according to a survey on enterprise security practices by Loudhouse, a technology and B2B research firm.

The survey shows that 25% of employees would sell company data, risking both their jobs and criminal convictions, for less than $8,000. About 3% would sell private information for as little as $155 while 18% would accept an offer of $1,550. 35% were open to bribes as the offer reached $77,500. However, some 65% said they wouldn’t sell data for any price.

The temptation to sell valuable information is exacerbated by the ready access most employees have to it, with 61% of respondents stating that they had access to private customer data. Some 51% had access to financial data, such as company accounts or shareholder information, and 49% had access to sensitive product information, such as planned launches and patents, the authors of the study found.

Regarding attitudes toward data security, only 29% said company data was their personal responsibility and 22% said they did not feel it was their responsibility at all.

Authors of the study confirmed the growing need for organizations to deploy data loss prevention strategies and technology to safeguard data from both malicious and inadvertent insider threats.

Internal threats came second on a list of top threat vectors found by security professionals, according to HOTforSecurity. Moreover, some 42% of IT managers said they were unable to identify the source of security breaches, while 32% of those who admitted having experienced a breach can’t say how often they were breached, making identification of suspect employees difficult.

This survey was conducted with over 500 IT decision makers and 4,000 employees in the US, Europe and Australia.