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Attacked from within

The global recession is putting critical company information at greater risk with job losses and redundancies at an all time high. Companies are generally aware of the need to protect themselves from external security threats, but it is the internal threats that are harder to prevent and are on the increase.

The increase has come from disgruntled staff members looking at ways to “get back at their employees” for a specific reason or secondly the imminence of redundancy has made people act on impulse trying to steal valuable corporate data. When a staff member walks out the door for that final time often time so too does confidential company data. Companies are even more exposed when an IT staff member is made redundant; they are more than likely the biggest threat as their IT savvy nature would open up the possibility of file deletions to full server deletions. 

Dismissed employees are just one side of the story. During times of economic downturn, companies also have to contend with partners and directors who resign or leave due to differences. Many times this presents a perfect opportunity for data theft.  To reduce the risk of this occurring in organisations data security must be approached in a pragmatic way as a balance among business requirements, value of assets, impact, threats and vulnerabilities. Data security provides the shield against variables that can compromise the integrity of the data, and includes attention to data privacy and data retention policies.