Is Your Industry at High Risk of Insider Threat?

By Jeremy Zoss, Managing Editor, Code42

In the movies, data theft is usually the work of outsiders. You’ve witnessed the scene a million times: A cyber thief breaks into a business, avoiding security measures, dodging guards and employees, and making off with a USB stick of valuable data seconds before he or she would have been spotted. But in the real world, data theft is much more mundane. Most cyberattacks are carried out by someone within the company or someone posing as such. Sometimes they take data that’s essentially harmless, like personal files they feel entitled to keep. Other times, what they take is potentially much more harmful. According to a 2016 report from Deloitte, 59 percent of employees who leave an organization say they take sensitive data with them! With IP making up 80 percent of a company’s value, insider threat is something that every company should take seriously.

Some industries are much more at risk of insider threat than others. Is your industry one of the most vulnerable? The infographic below details the industries hit with the most instances of insider threat in 2015. If you work in one of these industries, perhaps it is time to revisit your cyber security policies.