Employees pose a double security threat, Cisco study finds

It's not really news that employees can be the downfall of any security plan, but this three-part study commissioned by Cisco does point out a few new interesting tidbits. For instance, enterprise IT officials think employees are the biggest threat because there are two ways they can cause security breaches -- through malicious intent and through innocent mistakes.

That pretty much means that all employees, no matter their psychological profile or motivations, pose risks. Hard to protect against that. Now add that to the growing mobility of data on portable devices and you've got yourself a recipe for some late-night worry. But the study also pointed out that employees worldwide seem to be more aware than ever of the security risks and that's new.

On the flip side, a poor economy makes it even more tempting for employees to turn into bad apples, argues Andreas M. Antonopoulos in his Security: Risk and Reward newsletter. He writes:

"Every time there's a recession, crime goes up. Even good people will make poor decisions under economic pressure. From a security professional's point of view, recessions are a time of higher risk."

When employees are struggling to pay their bills or fear layoffs, IT professionals will need to perform a few extra measures to keep things safe. There are technology solutions, of course, like data leakage products (which explains why Cisco commissioned a three-part study on data leakage). But Antonopoulos also suggests simple things like organizing your employee directories and making sure there is no gap between the time employees are let go and the time IT turns off their access rights.

More from Cisco Subnet:

* The ASR 1000 has arrived
* Cisco planning hiring freeze
* Help! Someone Just Stole My Laptop!
* Under the hood: Cisco unified communications
* All about VMware virtualization
* 20 useful sites for Cisco networking professionals
* Cisco News and Review podcast
Go to Cisco Subnet for more Cisco news, blogs, discussion forums, security alerts, book giveaways, and more.