Study reveals data theft widespread

22 Nov 2010

Data protection - Data theft is common practice among UK employees, new research has suggested.

Security firm Imperva polled 1,000 workers and found that almost three quarters (72%) admitted to stealing data from an employer. Almost half of those questioned said they knew of at least one co-worker who had taken data, while 69% believed a business competitor had received information in this manner.

The survey found 26% of the workers polled had stolen customer data, 25% had removed HR records, 25% had taken marketing data, and 10% had lifted redundancy lists.

USB memory sticks and personal laptops (both 23%) were the most common way of stealing data, ahead of other portable storage (19%) and mobile phones (13%).

Intellectual property was the prime target, followed by customer information, the survey revealed.

Faced with redundancy, 37% of respondents said they would want to take information with them, but that jumped to 70% if they knew they were about to be fired.

"That employees steal data is nothing new, but it is surprising to see the number of people who think they are entitled to do so," said Amichai Shulman, chief technology officer at Imperva.

Employers need to define what constitutes intellectual property and why they retain ownership if they are to curb the loss of this data to competitors, he said.