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Employers need to improve their cybersecurity as one in five of their employees would sell their work-related passwords to outsiders. Photo: Shutterstock

Security and governance company SailPoint has surveyed 1,000 office workers in the UK, the US, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Australia to produce its annual Market Pulse Survey.

The report revealed that not only would one in five employees sell their passwords to people outside their organisations, 44 percent of those would do so for less than £700. Some would sell their corporate credentials for less than £70. A quarter of employees admitted to uploading sensitive information to cloud apps with the specific intent to share that data outside the company.

Three quarters of employees said that they would react negatively if their personal information was breached by another company. 84 percent said that they were concerned that sensitive information about them was being shared.

While workers are concerned about their own safety, that concern has seemingly not translated into action in the workplace. The majority of respondents admitted to using a single password among multiple applications and one third of employees shared their password with co-workers.

In addition nearly half of employees stated that they had access to a variety of corporate accounts after leaving their last job.

“This year’s Market Pulse Survey shines a light on the significant disconnect between how employees view their personal information and that of their employer, which could also include personal information of customers,” said the President and Founder of SailPoint, Kevin Cunningham.

“It only takes one entry point out of hundreds of millions in a single enterprise for a hacker to gain access and cause a lot of damage.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rebecca joined the HRreview editorial team in January 2016. After graduating from the University of Sheffield Hallam in 2013 with a BA in English Literature, Rebecca has spent five years working in print and online journalism in Manchester and London. In the past she has been part of the editorial teams at Sleeper and Dezeen and has founded her own arts collective.