Two-thirds of office workers bypass security protocols

Almost two-thirds of office workers admit they've prioritized productivity over safe cybersecurity practices -- 63 percent also own up to using a corporate device to access social media, messaging or entertainment sites/applications.

Research from identity and access management company CyberArk also shows that 80 percent access work applications from personal devices, with C-suite executives being among the worst offenders.

This is concerning as 36 percent of employees surveyed disagree that they immediately install security patches or software updates for all their personal devices. At the same time, just over a quarter (26 percent) don't always use a VPN when they access work resources.

There are other examples of poor cyber hygiene too, 49 percent of people surveyed use the same login credentials to access multiple work-related applications and 36 percent use the same login credentials for personal and workplace applications and services. In addition 35 percent use external personal storage services to store and share workplace-related information with external parties and 30 percent share workplace-related passwords and credential logins with their co-workers.

The report's authors note:

Most office workers don't set out to cause a security breach within their organization. However, they may not fully appreciate that, when it comes to security, their everyday behavior can
make a big difference.

For example, passwords that are used for multiple accounts can cause major issues for security teams. If a password for a seemingly low value enterprise tool is compromised and this password is used to login to multiple other corporate applications, an attacker could move laterally and gain easy access to more valuable information and systems within the organization.

You can get the full report on the CyberArk site.

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