Report indicates insider threats leading cause of data breaches in last 12 months

Report indicates insider threats leading cause of data breaches in last 12 months: While threats to data security and privacy are often perceived to come from the outside, all signs point to internal threats being just as dangerous, intentional or not.

Forrester recently released its Understand the State of Data Security and Privacy report, which offered insight on the reasons behind data breaches, with internal threats emerging as the leading cause. The survey – which featured respondents from Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and the US from SMB and enterprise companies with two or more employees – also covered other topics, including how security budgets are being allocated and the changing landscape of security teams’ responsibilities.

According to Forrester’s research, insiders take the cake as the top source of breaches in the last 12 months, with 36 percent of breaches stemming from inadvertent misuse of data by employees. Obviously, the issue here is ignorance; the study’s numbers indicate that only 42 percent of the North American and European SMB workforce surveyed had received training on how to remain secure at work, while only 57 percent say that they’re even aware of their organization’s current security policies.

“People don’t know what they don’t know,” said Heidi Shey, a Forrester analyst and the author of the report. “You’ve got to give them some kind of guidance and guard rails to work with.”