Information Security Violations by Staff Do as Much Harm as Hacking in APAC, Kaspersky Global Study Shows

Employee violations of an organisation’s information security policies are as dangerous as external hacker attacks according to a recent study from Kaspersky. In the last two years, 33% of cyber incidents in businesses in Asia Pacific (APAC) occurred due to employees intentionally violating security protocol. This figure is almost equal to the damage caused by cybersecurity breaches, 40% of which occurred because of hacking. These numbers are a tad higher than the global average of 26% and 30%, respectively.

There is a well-established perception that human error is one of the main causes of cyber incidents in business. But things are not as black and white. The state of an organisation’s cybersecurity is more complicated than that and more factors come into the equation.
With this in mind, Kaspersky conducted a study1to find out the opinions of IT Security professionals working for SMEs and Enterprises worldwide on the impact people have on cybersecurity in a company. The research was aimed at gathering information about different groups of people influencing cybersecurity, considering both internal staff, and external actors. A total of 234 respondents from APAC were surveyed.

The Kaspersky study revealed that, in addition to genuine errors, information security policy violations by employees from the region were one of the biggest problems for companies.

Respondents from organisations in APAC claimed that intentional actions to break the cybersecurity rules were made by both non-IT and IT employees in the last two years. They said policy violations such as these by senior IT security officers caused 16%of the cyber incidents in the last two years, 4% higher than the global average. Other IT professionals and their non-IT colleagues brought about 15% and 12% of cyber incidents respectively when they breached security protocols.

In terms of individual employee behaviour, the most common problem is that employees deliberately do what is forbidden and, conversely, they fail to perform what is required. Thus, respondents claim that a quarter (35%) of cyber incidents in the last two years occurred due to the use of weak passwords or failure to change them in a timely manner. This is 10% higher than the global result of 25%.

Another cause of almost one third (32%) of cybersecurity breaches were the result of staff in APAC visiting unsecured websites. Another 25% report they faced cyber incidents because employees did not update the system software or applications when it was required.

“It is alarming to see that despite the several headline-grabbing data breaches and ransomware attacks that happened in the region this year, a lot of employees continue to intentionally breach basic information security policies. With this latest study showing APAC’s numbers always higher than the global average, a multi-department approach to build a strong enterprise cybersecurity culture is urgently needed to address this human-factor gap that is definitely being exploited by cybercriminals,” comments Adrian Hia, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Kaspersky.

Using unsolicited services or devices is another major contributor to intentional information security policy violations. Nearly one quarter (31%) of companies suffered cyber incidents because their employees used unauthorised systems for data sharing. Employees in 25% of companies intentionally accessed data through unauthorised devices, whilst 26% of staff in other businesses sent data to personal email addresses. Another reported action was the deployment of shadow IT on work devices – 15% of respondents indicate that this led to their cyber incidents.

Alarmingly, respondents from APAC admit that, besides the irresponsible behaviour already mentioned, 26% of malicious actions were committed by employees for personal gain. Another interesting finding was that intentionally malicious information security policy violations by employees were a relatively big issue in financial services, as 18% of respondents in this sector reported.

“Along with external cybersecurity threats, there are many internal factors that can lead to incidents in any organisation. As statistics show, employees from any department, whether it is non-IT specialists or IT Security professionals, can negatively influence cybersecurity both intentionally and unintentionally. That is why, it is important to consider methods of preventing information security policy violations when ensuring security, i.e., to implement an integrated approach to cybersecurity. According to our research, in addition to 26% of cyber incidents being caused by information security policies violation, 38% of breaches occur due to human mistakes. As the numbers are alarming, it is necessary to create a cybersecurity culture in an organisation from the get-go by developing and enforcing security policies, as well as raising cybersecurity awareness among employees. Thus, the staff will approach the rules more responsibly and clearly understand the possible consequences of their violations.” comments Alexey Vovk, Head of Information Security at Kaspersky.

To keep your company’s infrastructure safe from the consequences of employees’ information security policies violations, Kaspersky recommends:

● Use cybersecurity products with Application, Web, and Device control features, such as Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business and Kaspersky Endpoint Security Cloud. This functionality can limit the use of unsolicited apps, websites, and peripherals, reducing infection risks.

● The Advanced Anomaly Control feature within Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business Advanced, Kaspersky Total Security for Business and Kaspersky Endpoint Detection and Response Optimum helps prevent potentially dangerous activities that are ‘out of the norm,’ both undertaken by the user and initiated by the attacker who has already seized control of the system.

● Control data transfers both ways – in and out of the system, as this also brings risks. With Kaspersky Endpoint Security Cloud, Kaspersky Security for Mail Server, and Kaspersky Security for Microsoft Office 365 issues like these can be solved with data discovery and the content filtering function.

● Kaspersky Security for Internet Gateway also possesses content filtering, to prevent unsolicited data transmission regardless of its type, platform protection status, or user behaviour at the endpoints inside the network.