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Employees leak confidential information from one in five businesses
Posted by Sheelagh (sheelagh) on Nov 02 2009
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Employees leak confidential information from one in five businesses

~Protecting sensitive business information still a challenge for Irish businesses~

One in five (19%) Irish businesses have experience of employees leaking confidential information from inside their business, according to new research on how businesses treat confidential information from Shred-it and Filestores, members of the DMG Group. The research surveyed legal, financial and professional services sectors and the public sector in Ireland.

The majority (79%) of Irish businesses expressed confidence that their current approach to document storage was secure. Yet, almost one fifth (17%) of Irish businesses have lost sensitive confidential information including paper and electronic files, USB keys and laptops in the past three years.

“Generally in times of economic recession when companies are faced with redundancies, there is a heightened risk of disaffected employees leaking sensitive business information. Companies will be left exposed if they do not start adhering to best practice in protecting their business information from being lost or falling into the wrong hands,” said Paul Kearns, General Manager at Shred-it.

Over two thirds of Irish businesses claimed they have official policies in place for the destroying and storing of sensitive information. However, nearly half (49%) have never checked how third party suppliers, such as legal and financial advisors, treat their confidential information.

Almost one fifth (19%) of financial institutions admit to losing sensitive data on numerous occasions over the past three years.

“We have all heard of the recent cases of banks losing customer information. These examples prove that loss of confidential information can affect any business and that the implications are costly, embarrassing and most importantly damaging to your business. Irish businesses need to wake up to the importance of protecting their information from being lost and stolen,” said Paul Kearns.

State organisations face particular challenges in the area of protecting sensitive information. One quarter (24%) of state organisations admit to losing sensitive data on numerous occasions over the past three years. Meanwhile, over half (58%) of state organisations believe they could do more to protect themselves from sensitive data being stolen.

The main highlights of the research of professional services, financial services, law firms and state organisations are as follows:

Almost half (44%) of businesses admitted they should do more to protect their business from sensitive business information being stolen
Nearly one third (28%) of Irish businesses have no policy in place for the storing and destroying of confidential files. Looking at specific sectors, 41% of professional services companies and 37% law firms have no formal policy in place for destroying and storing files
The majority (70%) of Irish businesses admit they could still do more to foster a paperless office environment
Over one third (35%) of Irish businesses agree their filing systems are disorganised and need updating, meanwhile almost half (47%) of those surveyed admit filing takes up too much space in their office
Over one third of Irish businesses (35%) say valuable time is wasted trying to locate files

On a positive note, the research did uncover a growing awareness amongst business people of the need to protect confidential information, with 92% of Irish business people claiming they are aware of their legal obligations to store business records. In addition, with many businesses cutting costs in the current climate, 80% of Irish companies didn’t cut their spending in this area claiming they couldn’t afford the risk of exposing their data and their business to potential security risks.

Last changed: Jan 28 2010 at 10:19 AM

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Employees leak confidential information from one in five businesses