Survey: Employees Would Sell Passwords for $1,000 or Less
A newly released study found that despite the assumption of corporate loyalty, employees don’t assume responsibility for protecting the integrity of corporate security processes.
Other findings include the worrying fact that more than two in five employees still have corporate account access after they leave their job.
AUSTIN, Texas – One in five employees say they’d be willing to sell their work-related passwords, according to new research from identity management company SailPoint, based here.
Despite 85% of respondents saying they would react negatively if their personal information was breached by a company, these same employees “are exposing their employers to the same data breaches through negligence and poor password hygiene,” notes SailPoint’s Market Pulse Survey, which was released this week.
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SailPoint commissioned independent research firm Vanson Bourne to interview 1,000 office workers at organizations with at least 1,000 employees across the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Australia. The report looks at how employees view their individual role in IT security processes, and what if any improvements are being made by organizations to adapt to the new business realities.
The survey – designed to measure employee attitudes toward protecting corporate digital assets – highlights an ongoing challenge for IT and security professionals: 26% of employees admitted to uploading sensitive information to cloud apps with the specific intent to share that data outside the company.
Among other key findings:
- The majority of respondents (65%) admitted to using a single password among applications, and one-third share passwords with their co-workers.
- Of those who would sell their passwords, 44% would do so for less than $1,000. This is up from one in seven who would sell a password a year ago.
- One in three employees admitted to purchasing a SaaS application without IT’s knowledge (a 55% increase from last year’s report).
- More than 40% of respondents reported having access to a variety of corporate accounts after leaving their last job.
Kevin Cunningham, president and founder of SailPoint, says this year’s Market Pulse Survey sheds light on the significant disconnect between how employees view their personal information and that of their employer, which could also include personal information of customers.
“Today’s identity governance solutions can alleviate the challenge of remembering several passwords and automate IT controls and security policies, but it’s imperative that employees understand the implications of how they adhere to those policies,” he says. “It only takes one entry point out of hundreds of millions in a single enterprise for a hacker to gain access and cause a lot of damage.”
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About the Author
Rodney Bosch, Senior Editor
Although Bosch’s name is quite familiar to those in the security industry, his previous experience has been in daily newspaper journalism. Prior to joining SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION in 2006, he spent 15 years with the Los Angeles Times, where he performed a wide assortment of editorial responsibilities, including feature and metro department assignments as well as content producing for latimes.com. Bosch is a graduate of California State University, Fresno with a degree in Mass Communication & Journalism. In 2007, he successfully completed the National Burglar and Fire Alarm Association’s National Training School coursework to become a Certified Level I Alarm Technician.
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