Employees a Growing Cause of Data Loss
As the nation – and the world – focuses on the recent Sony data breach, many have wondered about the state of data security in the U.S., and rightfully so. Data breaches large and small have turned into something of an epidemic, and companies have turned their attention inward to determine an effective solution.
Cybercriminals are always a threat, and IT departments should be outfitted with robust data security platforms in order to deter such thieves. But those hackers are by no means the only source of data loss. Increasingly, employees themselves have proven to be guilty of data loss, whether through negligence or malicious intent.
Eyes on the inside
Companies focused on threats from the outside might leave themselves exposed where it matters most, Forbes reported. According to a Ponemon survey of over 1,100 IT practitioners and over 1,100 end users, most were convinced that employee “mistakes, negligence or malice are frequently or very frequently the cause of leakage of company data.” Almost 40 percent of end users believe employees see more data than they should, while 78 percent of employees said their companies were unable to explain missing data, files or emails.
What this all means is that employees are generally allowed more access to files than they should be and companies have less control over data migration than they ought to. Fortunately, there is a solution.
B&L Associates has developed a platform called Vertices that allows companies to keep track of their backup tapes, including who has access to them, when they were last updated and where they are located. Such transparency is paramount in the event of a breach – organizations that use Vertices can gain insight on which employees were the last to access a tape should the data go missing.