Study Finds Employees, IT Professionals in Germany More Confident About Protection of Important Data Than in US, UK, France
October 04 2016 - 5:00AM
Employees and IT professionals in German organizations are more
confident about their ability to resist the growing risks of
cyberattacks and insider threats than their counterparts in the US,
UK and France. Those are among the findings from a new study of
more than 3,000 end-user employees and IT practitioners across the
U.S. and Europe.
The report was conducted by the Ponemon Institute
and sponsored by Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS), a
leading provider of software solutions that protect data
from insider threats and cyberattacks. The new release,
“Differences in Security Practices and Vigilance Across UK, France,
Germany and US,” compares the responses of IT professionals and
end-user employees in these four countries. The total of 3,027
respondents included 1,109 people in the United States, 670 people
in Germany, 655 people in the UK, and 593 people in France, who
work in organizations ranging in size from dozens to tens of
thousands of employees in a variety of industries including
financial services, public sector, health care and life sciences,
retail, industrial, and technology and software.
Among the key findings:
- Employees in the UK, France, Germany, and the US all say
insiders who are negligent are more likely to put the
organization’s data at risk than external attackers or insiders
acting with malicious intent.
- Fifty percent of German employees say they take all appropriate
steps to protect the company data they access and use, compared
with 39 percent of UK employees, 37 percent of French employees and
35 percent of US employees.
- Forty-four percent of German employees say their organizations
strictly enforce policies against the misuse or unauthorized access
to company data, well above the responses to the same question in
the UK (35 percent), US (32 percent) and France (29 percent).
- Thirty-nine percent of IT professionals in Germany believe
their organizations fully enforce a strict least privilege model
(which means access to company data only on a need-to-know basis)
for file shares and other collaborative data stores, much higher
than the confidence levels in the US (29 percent), France (25
percent) and UK (23 percent).
- Although German IT pros are least likely to say their
organizations have experienced ransomware (12 percent compared with
17 percent in the US, 16 percent in France and 13 percent in the
UK), they express the highest levels of concern about the threat of
ransomware (83 percent very or extremely concerned in Germany
compared with 80 percent in France, 77 percent in the US and 63
percent in the UK).
- Asked if their organizations have experienced the loss or theft
of data in the last two years, the highest response among IT people
was in the US (82 percent), followed by France (80 percent), UK (76
percent), and Germany (64 percent).
- In Germany, both employee end users (30 percent) and IT staff
(45 percent) are more likely than in the other countries to believe
their management would accept a decline in productivity in order to
prevent security risks. The same question produced less optimism
about this balance in the UK (25 percent of employees, 34 percent
of IT), France (23 percent of employees, 35 percent of IT), and the
US (21 percent of employees, 30 percent of IT).
- The top three security threats that most concern IT
professionals differ in each country:
- France: Insiders who are negligent: 67 percent, outside
attackers who compromise insider credentials: 53 percent, malicious
contractors: 40 percent
- UK: Insiders who are negligent: 61 percent, outside attackers
who compromise insider credentials: 55 percent, malware: 47
percent
- US: Insiders who are negligent: 61 percent, outside attackers
who compromise insider credentials: 55 percent, malware: 47
percent
- Germany: Outside attackers who compromise insider credentials:
66 percent, malware: 46 percent, malicious contractors: 41 percent
(insiders who are negligent ranked fourth: 36 percent)
Commenting on the findings, Dr. Larry Ponemon,
Chairman and Founder of Ponemon Institute, a leading research
center dedicated to privacy, data protection and information
security policy, said, "Cultural and business norms vary from
country to country, especially in the balance between employee
privacy and organizational security. This can affect attitudes,
preparedness and resistance to insider threats and cyberattacks.
The frequency and severity of data loss and theft continue to rise
in a disturbing trajectory. There is far greater employee and
third-party access to sensitive information than necessary.
Monitoring access and activity around email and file systems is an
essential part of protecting data. Executive and IT security
leadership have an imperative to improve communication so that all
employees and contractors understand their roles in contributing to
the protection of important and sensitive data.”
David Gibson, Varonis Vice President of Strategy
and Market Development, said, “This is a wake-up call about
the lack of modern protections and the lack of leadership – both in
the executive suite and among IT management. Most high-profile
intrusions involve the theft of files and emails that were not
protected. Insider threats and outside attackers that
compromised insider credentials have caused major damage to those
organizations and their reputations. Varonis is helping thousands
of organizations around the world address these challenges in ways
that not only dramatically reduce risk, but also improve
productivity and efficiency.”
Additional Resources
- For more information on Varonis' solution portfolio,
please visit www.varonis.com.
- Visit our blog, and join the conversation on Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Note to EditorsThis new analysis
draws from data collected by the Ponemon Institute for Varonis,
derived from interviews conducted in April and May 2016.
About VaronisVaronis is a
leading provider of software solutions that protect data
from insider threats and cyberattacks. Through an
innovative software platform, Varonis allows organizations to
analyze, secure, manage, and migrate their volumes
of unstructured data. Varonis specializes in file and email systems
that store valuable spreadsheets, word processing documents,
presentations, audio and video files, emails, and
text. This rapidly growing data often
contains an enterprise’s financial information, product plans,
strategic initiatives, intellectual property, and confidential
employee, customer or patient records. IT and business
personnel deploy Varonis software for a variety of use cases,
including data security, governance and compliance, user
behavior analytics, archiving, search, and file
synchronization and sharing. With offices and partners
worldwide, Varonis had approximately 4,800 customers as of
June 30, 2016, spanning leading firms in financial services,
healthcare, public, industrial, insurance, energy and utilities,
media and entertainment, consumer and retail, technology and
education sectors.
News Media Contact:
Sarah Wheble
CTP
617-412-4000 x 227
Email: swheble@ctpboston.com
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