While viruses are still the main fear of 1,600 end users surveyed in the UK, US, Germany and Japan, this was quickly followed by data loss, beating perennial favourites spam, spyware and phishing.
Only 6% admitted to causing leaks themselves, but 16% believed that other employees were culpable. But the real risk of data loss could be much higher, as only 67% of UK corporate respondents were actually aware what company data was confidential or proprietary.
This lack of knowledge was also reflected in the attitude of firms to having policies on data leaks. The study found that almost half of companies (46%) did not have a policy to prevent data leaks.
“All too often employees simply do not know which information is confidential, within the remit of public domain or of restricted distribution. Even if the regulations were clear, employees are often unaware of the corporate policy around such information,” said Rik Ferguson, solutions architect, Trend Micro.
