While the news is often filled with stories of foreign entities engaging in cyber attacks and hacks, government employees see people and policies within their own agencies as the more likely source of data breaches, according to a new survey reported on in US News.
Based on a survey of federal IT workers, as sponsored by Hewlett-Packard and conducted by the Ponemon Institute, 44 per cent of respondents saw the “negligent insider” as the greatest threat for data breaches — those who fail to take sufficient precautions in their access and protection of government networks. Threats from foreign entities were seen as the greatest threat by only 30 per cent.
Other findings from the survey included the following:
•Many federal employees felt their agencies were unprepared for a hack
•A lack of skilled programmers was seen as a major source of security risk
•Information sharing between agencies has been seen as mostly ineffective at protecting networks
As the nation continues toward the next round of elections, it is likely these topics will be of interest to voters, as more and more people are viewing federal cybersecurity as an important issue, with a majority of registered voters indicating they would like to hear more discussion of the issue by presidential candidates.
