London, UK – The recession must be hitting staff in the UK harder than we thought – 2% of them would sell company secrets for the price of a decent meal, according to a new survey.
The organisers of the Infosecurity Europe Show, which opened today in London, polled commuters at the capital’s railway stations and asked what price they put on keeping their employer’s secrets safe.
Of the 37% of workers who admitted they could be corrupted, 63% would only hand over sensitive data for at minimum of one million pounds, 10% would do it if their mortgage was paid off, 5% would do it for a holiday, 4% for getting rid of their credit card debt and 5% would do it for a new job.
But 2% of workers hold their employers in such high esteem that they said they would hand over company data in exchange for a decent meal.
Two thirds (68%) of employees said it was simple to sneak information out of their organisation and 88% said they had easy access to saleable data. The data involved ranged from customer databases, though business plans and accounts data to IT admin passwords.
“Criminals are 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,” said Tamar Beck, director of the Infosecurity show.
When asked about selling credit card information, employees became more coy and 80% said they wouldn’t take the risk. Of the remaining 20%, 68% would only do it for a million pounds, 7% if their mortgage was paid off, and 15% for paying off their credit cards.
