According to a survey of Irish working professionals and IT decision makers, more than half (53%) admit to sharing work documents and corporate data through cloud services even though nearly two thirds (62%) admitted they were not aware of the cybersecurity risks associated.
The research was commissioned by DataSolutions and carried out by the Marketing Development Programme at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School among 296 Irish professionals and 76 IT decision makers. It found that more than two thirds (67%) used personal devices for work purposes, but a quarter admitted they either would not, or did not know whether they would report the loss or theft of a smart device that had access to corporate data.
Furthermore, one in five did not agree that a lost or stolen personal device with access to corporate data should be wiped by their employer, in contrast to more than three quarters of IT decision makers who said the employer should wipe all data on such a device. The survey found that more than one fifth of companies are exposing themselves to cybersecurity risk by not requiring employees to report a lost or stolen personal device used for work purposes.
The research highlighted a lack of awareness among employees about data sharing policies regarding the cloud, as despite 61% of Irish businesses having such a policy, less than a third of employees were aware.
There were poor risk management efforts around the retention of data on personal devices too, as the survey found around a third of companies do not have an explicit policy in place, and about 20% of employees reporting they were not aware of their employer’s policy.
“These findings should make Irish businesses sit up and take notice,” said Francis O’Haire, director of technology and strategy, Data Solutions. “The majority of non-IT staff aren’t aware of cyber security risks associated with social media and cloud services, and because of this, they unknowingly put the business at risk.”
“Recent high profile cybersecurity attacks like the Ryanair breach show that there is a real fear of cyberwarfare. Companies are faced with the pressure of being ready for all attacks; hackers just need to find one weak link to make a huge dent in a company’s finances, reputation or data.”
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