Employees Have ‘No Idea’ Of Business Data Value

Businesses have their work cut out for them in protecting their data, according to the results of a new study, which found that nearly half of British employees agree they have “no idea” of the value of business data.

The majority of employees – 52 percent – said they rate their personal information as more important than their business’ data, with only 7 percent saying they considered business data more important, according to the survey of 1,000 British employees, carried out on behalf of Fujitsu by One Poll.

The results indicate that employees don’t have an accurate value of the value of their business’ data, according to Fujitsu, a conclusion also supported by the fact that 43 percent somewhat or completely agreed they have “no idea of the value of business data”.

Employees said they were preoccupied first and foremost with the security of their own personal data, with 30 percent saying they worried more about losing personal data than business data.

More than half – 58 percent – said they understand the risks around identity theft, but only 13 percent said they knew exactly what security the business had in place, while nearly a quarter (23 percent) said they felt the organisation or they themselves could be doing more around security.

Further indicating employees’ lack of confidence in their business’ security measures, 89 percent saying they trust the security of personal emails over work emails.

Employee education

The results suggest organisations could do well to address employees’ concerns about the security of their own personal information as a way of helping to protect business data, Fujitsu argued.

“Educating employees about the value of and how to protect their own personal data is a great starting point and businesses will see this data safeguarding attitude trickle through the business, helping employees become part of the threat defence,” said Andy Herrington, head of cyber professional services at Fujitsu, in a statement.

Helping employees protect their own data could also have a direct effect on improving corporate security, since identity theft is increasingly being used as a way of gathering information for attacks on enterprise networks, Fujitsu said.

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