One in 10 IT professionals admit to sharing confidential data

Despite recent claims that a recent data breach compromised 270 million email accounts, and an NHS trust being fined £180,000 for leaking data, close to half of IT professionals have not been trained in data protection, according to a recent report.
By The Newsroom
Published 16th May 2016, 15:58 BST
Updated 16th May 2016, 18:01 BST

The survey of 2,000 IT workers by Egnyte.com also found that one in 10 IT professionals admitted to sharing confidential client or customer information with people outside their company.

7 per cent of those questioned admitted to sharing confidential information with the wrong person, while 22 per cent admitted to receiving similar information in error.

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And over 10 per cent also confessed to working on confidential documents while using public wi-fi.

IT departments in organisations in the South West were most strict about security, followed by South East and North West. IT professionals in Northern Ireland were the most relaxed about data security, closely followed by London, Scotland and the East Midlands.

22.3 per cent of those questioned said that they had used unsecure sharing methods such as Dropbox, WeTransfer or Google Drive to exchange confidential data.

Overall, 43.75 per cent of UK IT departments do not make it compulsory to use safe / specific data sharing platforms.

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Question: how safe is data within your company? 1 = not secure at all and 10 = completely secure

Region Data protection score

South West 7.67

South East 7.6

North West 7.5

Wales 7.45

North East 7.43

Yorkshire and the Humber 7.4

East Anglia 7.37

West Midlands 7.37

East Midlands 7.33

Scotland 7.28

London 7.18

Northern Ireland 6.88