Employees Still the Biggest Threat to Companies

What's the biggest threat to your company? As we have reported, it is your employees. Now here are the study results.



According to a study conducted by IBM, the 2016 Cyber Security Intelligence Index, 60% of all attacks were carried out by insiders. Three-quarters of these attacks were carried out by malicious intent, and one-quarter involved inadvertent actors.

The study also found that the top three targets of malware are health care, manufacturing, and financial services.

How do employees play into this threat? It could be just a matter of human error or it could be to carry out a vendetta.

1) Human error. It could be as simple as clicking on a phishing email. Mistakes can be costly, from misaddressed emails to stolen devices to confidential data sent to insecure home systems.

2) Leaked passwords. Employees who want to steal competitive information, or sell data, or have a vendetta against the company can be real threats.

3) Hijacked identities. Often leveraged data from social media accounts. Phishing scams that lead to access to the company server.

So when you read about the next big breach, remember that less than half can be attributed by outsider hacks. And these breaches are probably facilitated by targeting an unsuspecting employee.

Source: HBR